An Expanding Threat
by Hattski
Summary: New Neuroi-hives is spawning up all over Europe, and the Neuroi's is stronger than before. How will the witches defeat them this time?
1. Chapter 1

**An Expanding Threat**

**For now, please,  
Enjoy!  
**

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**Chapter 1: Drops of Red **

"Barkhorn and Hartmann, go around it to the right. Shirley and Luuchini, go around it to the left. Minna and Perrine, stay in front of it. Lynne, stay where you are and continue with the long-ranged attacks. Miyafuji, follow me to the back for the core." Major Sakamoto Mio shouted out trying to make herself heard while the sound of bullets and the Neuroi's beams shouted in their ears.

"Roger!" They all responded and flew towards their designated positions.

Mio and Miyafuji took off below the Neuroi while for the core Miyafuji acted as a shield for the 2 of them while the Neuroi focused a little more on them since it understood that they tried to go for the core.

As the others kept it surrounded it didn't change its current direction as it kept going at the direction of their base. The two witches that went for the core got to the back of it and started their barrage at its rear.

After a few seconds they made a small hole in its hard armor and saw the red crystal that is the core, and was now focusing their fire to that spot while Miyafuji kept her shield up during their assault. Finally Mio got in the critical bullet on the core and the Neuroi ceased its attacks and with a blast the Neuroi shattered into a beautiful explosion of what looked like small white crystals.

"This one was almost as strong as the last one." Minna said to Mio as they closed in on each other. "It seems like the Neuroi's that is coming from the new hive in Gallia is a lot stronger that the ones from the previous one. I don't like this and I also heard from similar reports from the 502nd and the 505th squadron that the ones from the new hives up there are stronger than before as well." She said in a worried tone.

"Yeah, I know how you feel, and we have to get rid of these new hives as fast as possible." Mio replied. "But if anything comes up we can deal with it. There is nothing witches cannot do, isn't that right, Minna?"

Minna gave her a smile. "You're right. It has always been that way and it will probably continue being that way."

Mio gave her a smile as well before turning to the rest of the group. "Everyone, we're heading back to base."

"Roger!" Everyone replied back in at the same time.

The sun has begun to set as you could already see some stars in the sky over Romagna's coastline. Eila and Sanya were standing outside of the hangar waving at them and stood there patiently as the others were jumping out of their respective striker units, although Sanya was leaning against Eila's shoulder.

"You sure had a good time being able to keep sleeping while we have to go shoot down a Neuroi. But I'm sure it's equals out by you having the night patrol tonight. See you at lunch again." Erica said with a smile while passing by them.

"It's a rare occurrence to see you two meeting us at the way back of a mission." Miyafuji said as she met up with the two witches that were left back at the base.

"Well, you see, we're a little bit hungry and since I'm having night patrol with Sanya tonight we might want to fill up our stomachs a bit." Eila said scratching the back of her head. "And since you make such great food we wondered if you could cook something for us quickly."

"Sure. I was going to cook food for everyone anyway so it's no problem." Miyafuji replied with a smile. "Sanya-san?"

"Hehe, we just woke up a little while ago so she is still a little sleepy. But if she just get to eat something she wake up."

"I'll go cooking something right away then." She said as she took off to the kitchen.

"Hey, Sanya? Wake up." Eila said trying to wake Sanya up as calmly as possible. But it really didn't matter that much since she woke up immediately as Shirley was running tests on her striker unit again. "Really? They just got back from a mission and she's already in full go to be testing it?"

"Eila?" Sanya sleepily said while doing her best to keep her eyes open while looking at Eila. "Can't we go inside? It's so noisy out here."

"Sure, we can sit and wait for the food by the table." Eila said while tried to keep Sanya from falling over while they walked inside from the roaring sound.

As dinner, they got some of Yoshika's Fuso soup special with a secret ingredient that none in the squad has been able to figure out yet.

And after the meal Eila and Sanya prepared themselves to sortie and went for the hangar. Lucchini passed by them and walked a little in front of them. "Thank you for doing the night patrol so I can sleep and play a lot more." She said but when they entered the hangar she then ran off and hastily climbed up on one of the beams in the celing where she already has a blanket and a pillow prepared.

Eila and Sanya picked their weapon of choice and jumped into their striker units and started up their engines and took off up through the clouds.

A few of the other witches in the base watched them take off from various windows throughout the building. And as it started to be pretty late most of them started to get sleepy and went to bed and ten minutes after the duo left the base, most of the lights in the building was turned off.

After being in flight for a little bit with a bit of acrobatic display and with Sanya matching in a frequency with a nearby radiostation, Sanya quietly started to humming a song as she flew stomach up. Eila flew around unaimlessly until she heard the sweet sound that came from her fairly passive and quiet scouting partner. She then suddenly closed the gap between them until she was only a feet away to hear the white-haired girl better.

While flying in silence with only Sanya's humming as the she cut off the radio broadcast, both of them calmed down immensely as it was extremely soothing. Eila relaxed a little too much as she forgot to use her magic to fly until she noticed that she fell a little.

Sanya descended to Eila's position as she stopped humming the song, as Eila regained her posture. "You want me to carry you while you listen?" The white-haired girl asked warmly with an equally warm smile.

Eila blushed as she turned blood-red and started to stutter. "I-Is it r-really okay?" She replied with a nervous yet eager voice.

The beige-haired witch has never been so nervous and stiffened up as she was in the arms of the one she loved the most. She was lying with her face against Sanya's soft chest and one of Sanya's arms on her back, and who which now was singing the lullaby that she has been humming on earlier, only this time it was directed to Eila.

As Eila stopped using her strikers and just focused on Sanya's song, she loosened up a bit and just let her mind float away with the wind that passed them by.

After a while Eila hesitantly reached her arms around Sanya's small body, much to Sanya's surprise, which was easily seen as she blushed faintly and with a smile able to make Eila fall dead on her feet. But now Eila had her eyes closed, and didn't care about anything in the world just for now.

After half an hour Sanya started to pant faintly, which caught Eila's attention. "Sanya? What's wrong?"

Sanya put on a little strained smile."It's nothing major. It is just that it consumes a little more magic than I thought when carrying another person."

Eila activated her striker unit immediately and jumped of Sanya's stomach. "Oh, sorry. But then it is my duty to do the same to you, isn't it?" She said with a bright smile and invited Sanya with her arm's wide open.

"I would love to, but my Fliegerfaust weights a lot, so would only be a burden." She replied with a fairly disappointed voice.

"Don't worry, I am more enduring than I look like. You should know that more than anybody."

"Of course I know that but I don't want you to exhaust your magic power like I did. Not that I really minded." Sanya said with a blushing smile.

"Hehehe… But that's exactly why I want to do this, so you can rest a little bit at least. So please, come here."

Eila was lying horizontally in the air and waited for Sanya to lie down on her stomach. Suddenly when Sanya was just about to lie down, Eila looked scared as she pushed Sanya away from her and suddenly a red beam passed between them.

"How could…" Sanya said confused. "I couldn't sense it at all."

"We can talk about that later but for now lets just kick its ass." Eila said with a confident smile, while charging towards where the beam came from. "Sanya, just be ready with your shield."

Diving down through the clouds they could see the one that fired the beams at them. It was a fairly long and not to wide Neuroi and not very thick and a sharp edge at the end of it. It looked a little like a black and red pencil.

"I go in close and draw the fire you stay here in the back." Eila ordered. "Bring it on, you big lump of… whatever it is!"

Diving in under the Neuroi while dodging the red beams Eila pulled the trigger of her MG42 and put a lot of holes in its armor, and Sanya let loose some rockets from her Fliegerfaust and blew some fairly big holes right through it.

"It doesn't look like it has a core, since we destroyed most of it." Eila said slightly annoyed while it regenerated its damaged parts.

"Don't tell me… it's just a drone?!" And just when Sanya said that she heard Eila yell through the transponder.

"SANYA! DODGE, SHIELD OR WHATEVER!"

And just as she turned around she saw a barrage of beams in her direction, and as she tried to dodge a beam, it hit and destroyed one of her strikers.

"SANYA!"

Eila could hear a panting girl through the radio. "I'm fine. It just got one of my strikers."

Eila then looked at the direction that the beams came from and saw 5 more identical apparent drones and a behind them she saw a smaller odd shaped Neuroi-part that seemed to be able to hold up to 6 of these drones. She tried to contact the base through her transponder. "HEY, MINNA, MIO OR ANYONE!? WE'RE UNDER HEAVY FIRE AND SANYA LOST ONE OF HER STRIKERS! ANYONE? HEY!"

With an irritated grunt she dodged the beams as she moved to Sanya's position. "The one with the core is most probably the one over there." Eila said and pointed to the odd one behind all the drones.

"Eila! Come in, Eila or Sanya!" They both heard Minna's voice from their transponders.

"Finally! Hurry up and send reinforcements, we won't last long at this rate!" Eila said in a tone that sounded more like an order, as she used her shield to protect Sanya. And from far away they could both hear the Neuroi-alarm from the base.

"We're on our way, so please hold on a little while longer." Minna said as she left the radio.

Also Eila could hear Sanya pant quite heavily while she also used her shield to protect them. "Eila, I can't keep this up for much longer! I'm running to low on magic."

"This is all my fault" Eila thought to herself. "If hadn't been so greedy I wouldn't have rested, while Sanya flew carrying me."

"Please, just a little while longer, until the others come here." She then said. "I try to draw their fire. You can back away so they won't attack you." Eila said and charged the odd shaped core unit, and sure enough she drew the fire from the most of the drones, but still two of them went for Sanya. "I have to hurry up and finish this, otherwise Sanya is in grave danger."

"Eila, don't be so rash." Sanya screamed after her as she tried her best not to get shot down herself.

Eila could hear Sanya's breathing getting heavier and heavier, and she was halfway through the barrage of beams of 4 drones, and thanks to her foresight magic she haven't been near of being hit.

"We're in flight right now, so please stay safe. Shirley is faster so we sent her away to you, so she would arrive any minute." They heard Mio say from the transponder.

"Thanks, since it's getting pret…" Was all she got to say until she got interrupted by Sanya's panting voice.

"Eila, and everyone! I'm sorry." She then heard from her transponder. "My magic will be depleted after a few more hits."

Eila stopped dead in her tracks. "SANYA! NO!" She screamed and turned around and pumped in as much magic as she could to boost her speed as much as possible. And as she was just a little bit away, Sanya's shield shattered and unconscious, she was sent flying backwards and she was now falling.

And just as Eila, who now had tears flowing uncontrollably, was able to touch Sanya, a beam was already on course and as Eila put up a shield to save Sanya, the shield didn't quite reach all the way and let the beam graze a bit of Sanya's arm and her stomach.

"SANYA!" Eila now screamed and grabbed hold of Sanya tightly and did her best in deflecting as many beams as possible with her shield, as she had problem evading the beams carrying another person. And at that moment Shirley made a driveby on the 2 drones that was the ones shooting at Eila and Sanya and drew the fire away.

Trying to find a soft spot to lay Sanya on in the forest below, Eila found one eventually and gently put her down. "Sanya! Hey, Sanya! Wake up, please! You can't die! You can't! Otherwise I…" Eila said in a crying voice as the tears wouldn't stop falling on Sanya's cheek, as Eila got mute. She bends down over Sanya's body. "MIYAFUJI! PLEASE SAVE SANYA!"

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**Chapter 1 End**

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**I hope you enjoyed this fanfiction, and I would appreciate if you left a review if you liked it.  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**An Expanding Threat**

**Wow, a new chapter in less than a month. I'm surprised of myself.  
There isn't anydirect action in this chapter, mostly dialoge and character interactions in this chapter so I hope you won't be too bored with this.**

**Please enjoy!**

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**Chapter 2: Negative Aura  
**

As the incoming witches heard Eila's screams and cry, they hastily picked up the pace to the battlefield. "Minna and Miyafuji, go down to Eila and Sanya to check the situation, the rest of us will have to deal with this." Mio said in a hurry as the rest of the team followed her lead and Minna and Yoshika hurried down to Eila who cried over Sanya's bloodstained body.

"Ahh, this is horrible!" Yoshika said in shock when she landed and jumped out of her striker unit and ran over to Sanya.

Eila looked at Yoshika with red eyes from all her crying. "Can you save her?" She then asked in a sad but wishful tone. Eila stood up and moved to let Yoshika use her healing magic.

"She's still alive so I should be able to save her." Yoshika replied.

"DON'T EVEN SAY IT AS IF SHE WILL DIE! JUST SAVE HER, OR ELSE I WON'T FORGIVE YOU!" Elia screamed in fear at Yoshika, as Yoshika jumped back in both surprise and in fright of Eila's outburst.

Minna cut in and against Eila's will she dragged her away from Yoshika. When they was about 15 meters away from Sanya and Yoshika, Eila got a hard and firm slap on the cheek, as tears ran from Minna's eyes as well. "Don't act like you're the only one that is worried about Sanya. We all know that you two are the closest in the team, but everyone in 501st is like family to all of us. And right now Miyafuji is over there and doing her best at saving her, and you dare to speak bad at her. If we wouldn't have Miyafuji here at all this could have ended up much worse." Minna said and saw that Eila started to slowly take in what Minna just told her.

Above them Erica and Trude made their way through the drones and went straight for the small odd shaped one. And with a final bulletstorm the core was visible for only a second until it was hit and the drones and the odd shaped one shattered.

Soon the whole squad had gathered around Yoshika who still did her best to heal Sanya, who very faintly was just able to breath. After a few minutes Yoshika was completely exhausted and still Sanya had a serious wound in her most left side stomach area, just above the pelvis.

"We can't have her lying out here. We have to carefully transport her back to base." Mio said to Minna but loud enough so all could hear them. "You, Perrine and Lynne should go ahead and contact a medical squad as fast as possible and also prepare a bed for Sanya."

"Roger! Lynne and Perrine, let's go!" Minna said to the other two witches and then the 3 of them all took off against the base.

"About moving her, I suggest that Barkhorn and Hartmann should carefully fly her back." Mio then continued.

"Roger, then let's get her up carefully, Hartmann." Trude then replied as she and Erica went up beside Sanya and gently picked her up. "Careful now." She said as they slowly started to fly with Sanya.

As the others took her belongings like the Fliegerfaust and her striker units, and then they all made their way back to the base.

As they arrived at the base, their first priority was to get Sanya to one of the beds in the infirmary. As Eila was following the others, she alone was stopped by Minna who stood in her way.

"Eila, I know you care about Sanya's harsh condition, but you're outburst at another member of the unit, which in this case is Miyafuji, is not alright under any circumstances. As punishment you're getting confined to your room for 3 days."

"B- but I…" Eila replied until she got cut off by Minna again.

"And I will not tolerate any objection from you. You should consider this a mild treatment. This also is an order by your superior so you better abide by it or do you want me to extend you punishment?" Minna said with a seriously scary expression.

"Roger!" Eila said in a sad voice and with a hanging head she turned around and slowly walked back to her room. When she arrived in her room she took Sanya's pillow and threw herself in her own bed and started to hug the pillow as she shed several tears and continued to lie there as she had no interest in anything else than Sanya's well-being.

By an hour later the medical crew arrived with a beautiful witch doctor in the lead and a few assistants. And by the report they got from Minna, they hurried to the infirmary where Lynne and Yoshika was checking up and cleaning Sanya's wound.

"Wow, that a pretty serious wound." The new witch doctor said in surprise as she arrived at Sanya's bed. "I guess you are the units medic, am I right?" She asked Yoshika.

"Y- Yes, that would be me." Yoshika replied.

"I guess you much knowledge in medical treatment, considering how you have treated the wound up until now?"

"Yes, my family have a clinic back in Fuso, so I have a fair amount of knowledge. It's my first time treating a wound this big but I have been told how to treat it." Yoshika replied.

"Good. This girl could call herself lucky if nothing else. If she wouldn't get the medical treatment or healing she got until now she wouldn't have made it, from the looks of it. But for now, get some rest and we will get on with her treatment. We must have you to restore your magic as much as possible until morning. We can hold out for a good while so get as must rest as you can." The other witch said as she walked up to Sanya and started healing with her magic.

"Roger!" Yoshika said as she started walking out of the infirmary where most of the unit stood and waited for answers.

Barkhorn took the initiative to start the conversation. "So how did it look? Can you tell if she's gonna be alright?" She said with a worried look.

"She is still breathing, even though it is faint, so if we just can hold her under treatment around the clock it will probably be alright. The beam damaged her liver a small bit so we have to hurry up and close it, but they should be able to close that soon as I fixed most of it. Although the other organs didn't sustain any considerable damage so they are healed already. If she wasn't a witch, things might have been much, much worse. Her arm on the other hand is not that much of a problem. It would probably be fine by the morning." Yoshika said trying to put up a reassuring smile.

"We trust that you can save her, Miyafuji. There aren't many witches that can heal as good as you so we believe in you." Shirley said with an optimistic tone which seemed to lighten the mood in the hall.

"Now I have to rest to go to sleep to restore as much of my magic as possible. I will have to take over a while for the other medic tomorrow." She then said walking away to her room. "Good night everyone!"

Mio arrived in the hangar just about sunrise. She jumped out of her striker unit and with a yawn and spotted one sleepy and snoring Lucchini up on one of the beams. She met one Minna in the hall to the way of the command room. "Now I remember how nice it is to have Sanya out there doing the night patrols. I have to go to sleep since I am pretty tired right now." Mio said with a sleepy laugh.

"I'm sorry that you had to go through this, Mio. But you probably won't have to do it next night. I contacted Karlslands 4th Flying Corps, and requested for Heidemarie W. Schnaufer to be sent here in the current absence of Sanya. Since she sees Sanya as a friend as she is a fellow nightwitch, she agreed to come here immediately." Minna reassured Mio.

"Good, I cannot adapt that quickly to fully cover for the night patrol. I sure hope that Heidemarie will come before dusk. But for now I will have some breakfast before I go to bed again." Mio replied as she wobbled to the kitchen.

Eila woke up still hugging Sanya's pillow, and she still wore her clothes from when last night. She was awake for a few minutes until she heard someone knock on her door. "Come in." She said in a faint voice.

"Sorry for intruding, Eila-san." Lynne said as she entered through the door with a tray with newly made breakfast.

"How's Sanya?" Eila said in a sad voice, looking down to the ground.

Lynne stayed silent for a few seconds. She opened her mouth but closed it again as she was hesitating to tell Eila, but she felt like she had to tell the one that loved Sanya the most. "I heard Yoshika-chan and the other doctor talk a while ago. And apparently the shock from the taking that wound and her exhaustion of her magic caused her to enter a coma like state."

She saw that tears started to run down her chins, and she fell backwards down into the bed and hugged the pillow tightly. Lynne could also hear Eila sob from the bed so she put the tray of breakfast on a table that was standing in the middle of the room, and ran over to Eila to comfort her.

"Don't worry, don't worry. She's going to be just fine. They will be working around the clock, doing their best so she will be just fine." Lynne said in a calming voice and sat beside Eila and patted her on her head for a while until Eila had calmed down.

"Eila-san, you should try to eat before the food gets cold. But try to cheer up, and Sanya-san will be alright. But a few of us are taking a small shopping trip to Rome for necessities. So is there anything you want us to buy?"

Eila shook her head and continued to stay still. "Sorry, I'm happy that you are trying to comfort me, but could I just be alone for a while?"

Lynne stood up from the bed. "Sure, just take the time you need. And don't forget the food on the table." Lynne said before leaving the room and closing the door.

Eila couldn't keep herself in control anymore. She was able hold in most of her sorrow in front of Lynne, but now the tears wouldn't stop. Trying to cheer up with happy memories and moments with Sanya was useless since it still only did result with remembering the scene of her shield shattering and the beam hitting her. "Sanya, please come back to me soon."

Yoshika entered the infirmary where the doctor and assistants was still in full go. "How is it going?" She asked when she stood next to the doctor.

"It's going a lot better than I thought it would do. The liver is all good now so it is just her damaged flesh right now that we should focus on for now." The doctor replied. "If we keep this up we should be able to close this wound in a matter of hours."

"Trude, do you really think that Sanya will be okay." Hartmann said in a sad and questioning voice while sitting by the dinner-table still eating their breakfast. "I overheard a conversation between Miyafuji and the doctor. And apparently Sanya has entered a kind of coma."

Trude froze to Erica's statement. "What? Really? Are you really sure? But one thing I can't understand is what made her exhaust her magic that quickly? It's not like her."

"I just hope that she can wake up soon and that she will be alright. If not for all of us, at least then for Eila. She haven't made a sound since got sent to her room." Erica continued. "I'm pretty worried about her."

"I'm not that great at comforting people so I don't think I could do anything. You probably would be able to."

"You shouldn't disturb her at all. She said that she wanted to be alone for now. I probably shouldn't have told her about Sanya's condition. She took it pretty hard." Lynne cut in.

"What? You told her? That is one of the things you shouldn't do. Why did you do that?" Trude said slightly irritated.

Lynne backed off a little. "S- She asked me about Sanya's condition. I felt like I could not tell her. I thought that the person that cares most about Sanya should know how the situation looks."

"Well, that's not wrong, I suppose." Trude said while considering that it sounded pretty logical. "But still, you're just breaking her down mentally like this. I still think that when it comes to talk about Sanya, Eila is the last person you should talk to when the situation looks like this. I guess now it's not much else we can do but to ride this out and hope Sanya will make it."

Lynne looked down to the ground as she felt bad being scolded by Trude. "I'm sorry."

"You shouldn't be so hard on her, Trude. It's not her fault." Erica cut in. "Cause if you think about it, if she would say that Sanya is fine and when Eila get out of her room and she find out about that she is in a coma, she would not only be mad at Lynne for lying and she would probably break down either way. Even if Lynne would avoid the topic I guess that Eila would figure out that something was wrong." She then continued. "I think it is better that she cries out now then later."

"Well… You're right, I suppose." Trude said as she looked down at the table and then looked at Lynne. "I'm sorry for scolding you."

"No, you're right as well. It's not necessary to apologize. B- but to change the topic, Hartmann-san, we are supposed to be away in five minutes so we should hurry up."

"Where are you going?" Trude asked.

"We are going for shop for necessities in Rome. And we are going to buy stuff for Sanya when she wakes up. Do you want anything, Trude?" Erica asked back.

"No, not really. I don't really need anything. I was just curious on where you were going. Who else is going beside you two?"

"I think it was Shirley, Lucchini and Perrine." Erica replied with a smile.

"I see. Well then, have a nice trip." Trude said with a smile and took both her and Erica's plate to clean them off.

A few minutes later the truck was ready to leave the base, and with Shirley at the steering wheel the truck took off with a considerable acceleration and speed so and after a short while they were out of sight.

At the infirmary Miyafuji and the doctor was still in full go in healing Sanya's wound and by judging by the speed they are going at, they would probably be done by the evening if they include a few pauses. Yoshika had left for the time being making dinner for the unit and for their guests.

Those who went shopping in Rome had returned and they brought the ingredients Yoshika needed for the meal. It was going to be soup again since it would be easier to make Sanya some easy-to-eat food.

The atmosphere by the dinner-table was not as positive as it usually was. The witches were pretty quiet and nobody didn't have it in them to break the ice, beside of Shirley, Minna and the doctor that gave compliments on Yoshika's food.

After the meal and Miyafuji went back to the infirmary and everyone else went to do their respective things. Trude was the one that had to bring food to Eila this time. When she got to Eila's room she slowly opened the door and saw that she still was lying in her bed, probably crying but she couldn't tell from that distance. She looked at the tray with the breakfast on from this morning and she hasn't as much as touched it. Trude put the tray of soup down beside the tray with breakfast and went up to the bed where Eila.

"Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen! I know you are sad about Sanya and we all are but you still have to remember that you have to take care of yourself. You have to eat properly." Trude said in a serious voice but tried to sound sincere.

"I'm not hungry, right now." Eila replied in a monotone disinterested tone with her head buried in the pillow.

"That's enough! You haven't eaten since last night before you went out on your shift. And that is nearly 20 hours ago. In worst case, if we are attacked by a neuroi and you will have to go out there too, where are you gonna get you strength from then?"

Eila didn't answer on that question.

Trude grabbed Eila's shoulder pulled her away from the pillow to look her in the eyes. "Look at yourself. Your eyes are all red from crying, your hair is a mess and you can still see the dried tears that you have cried. Just talk to Minna and she could probably let you leave your room for a short bath."

Eila pulled herself away from Trude's firm grip. "Leave me alone!"

Trude was close to losing it against Eila's attitude. "Why you…" Was all she got to say until Erica flung the doors open and held Trude from becoming violent.

"Trude! Calm down. Leave the room and I talk with her." Erica said and pushed Trude out of the room and closed the door behind her. "Eila, don't have any hard feelings against Trude now. She is just worried about your health. But I understand that you want to be alone but try to eat at least something." Erica said with a smile. "But don't worry. Sanya is strong. She will come out the coma in no time." She then said and gave Eila a reassuring caress before going for the door. "Just try to cheer up a bit."

Before she left she could hear a faint "Thank you!" and she could make out what looked like a smile, and the left with a chuckle.

Eila felt like she could calm down thanks to Erica's calm and cheerful approach. But still, the aching pain in her heart did not disappear that easily, and she could not wish for anything more than Sanya waking up anytime. And she could at least try to taste a little bit of the soup.

Outside Trude was waiting outside the room, still slightly agitated. "So? How did you manage to talk to her without getting upset? Her attitude could get anyone pissed off." She said to Erica.

"That's because your attitude of forcefully lecturing her is all wrong. When she is down like this she don't want to hear pressuring things. You should encourage her and give her a smile and let her take it in her own pace."

"Well… When you put it like that you make it sound like I'm the bad guy here." Trude said while backing off a few steppes.

"I'm not saying you are wrong, but in this case it's not the right way of approaching her. Although I also find it kind of annoying when you are lecturing me all the time." Erica replied with a mischievous smile.

"That's just because you don't behave like a Karlsland soldier. You don't have any discipline, you are lazy and you don't follow anything that we learned in the military." Trude continued with a still slightly irritated tone.

"That's because it's a pain. So I have always wondered why you have been so stuck up about this. You should try to live instead of following the rules so strict, otherwise I'm worried that you are going to die sore. And you are also the only one here that lives on these rules, and I don't think Mio or Minna would complain if you let up a little. Minna is our leader here and even she doesn't take as hardly on the rules like you do." Erica said to Trude and she looked quite serious this time. "I don't want you to burnout from stress by keeping up with yourself."

Trude looked quite surprised and taken by Erica's words. "You're that worried about that I will burn out? But I can't just throw away all of the principles that I learned from Karlsland."

"But you can at least maybe tone it down a little bit. I want you to smile more since it is so rare to see you do it. It is a really beautiful smile."

Trude blushed up a bit from that comment. "I- Idiot. How can you say something like that and not be embarrassed about it?"

Erica giggled a little. "I also want to see more of that too. You're so cute when you blush, and the fact that you don't know how to handle it." Erica then said and then flung her arms around Trude's neck as in a hug as they walked away down the hall.

Evening came to the Romagna base with the two healing witches entering the living room where most of the unit was at the moment, except for Eila, Perrine, Lucchini and Shirley.

"We are finally finished with healing Sanya and the wound is closed. Although we don't know when she might wake up from the coma, she is at least out of danger." The doctor confirmed with a smile and she looked pretty worn out and tired.

"Oh, thank god." Lynne and Erica said in symphony and let out a deep breath. ¨

"Now we just hope it doesn't take too long for her to wake up." Trude said but was then interrupted by the sound of an incoming plane, and she went to the window to look out and saw it going in for a landing outside the base. "Who is coming to visit us?" She then asked the group to see if anyone knew.

"It's Heidemarie W. Schnaufer who is coming as a replacement for Sanya for a couple days." Minna replied.

Erica shone up by the sound of the name of her friend from a while ago. "Really? I haven't seen her in quite a while." Was all she said before she was out of the couch in a flash and ran out the door.

"I guess we all can go and greet her so she can meet the most of us and make her feel welcome here." Minna continued and all rose from where they were sitting.

"Who is He… Heidemarie, was it?" Lynne asked Minna in the hall on their way out.

"Heidemarie W. Schnaufer is her name, and she is Karlsland strongest Nachthexe, as we call them in Karlsland but you know them as night witches. Her score recently passed by 100 shot-down units, all during nighttime combat. She agreed to come here and take over for Sanya, since they have apparently communicated from time to time through their magic antennas during the night and she sees Sanya as a close friend, which is no surprise since they're quite similar." Minna said and continued for a while on their way down to the hangar where they met her.

The plane has stopped the unit was all waiting and now Perrine and Shirley has joined in as well. When the door of the plane opened, a white-haired witch with a huge bust stepped out. Erica rushed forward and when Heidemarie took the final step of the stairs from the plane, Erica jumped into her with a hug.

"It's been so long since we last met. Are you doing well?" She asked as the white-haired looked quite uncomfortable and nervous.

"Y- Yeah, I'm doing quite well, I guess. But I am worried about Flying Officer Litvyak. How's she doing right now?" She asked Erica with a worried expression.

"She is healed but sadly enough she is still in coma. But it is still good to see you again." Erica replied and then Trude and Minna stepped forward.

"Good to see you again, Heidemarie." Trude greeted her. "It's been quite a while and it's nice that you wanted to come here for a visit."

"Thank you, Barkhorn. But I just want to visit Flying Off…" Was all she got to say until she felt someone's small hands grab hold of her breasts from behind.

"Ohh, they're big! They can almost compare with Shirley's. But Shirley still holds the lead." Lucchini happily said while continuing to fondle the breasts.

"Hehehe, of course she can't beat me. Did you seriously think that I would lose, Lucchini?" Shirley asked boastingly.

"Nah, but these are super soft."

"Pilot Officer Francesca Lucchini? What do you think you are doing to our guest?" Minna said in an unusually scary expression.

"Eeek! Nooooooo!" Lucchini screamed, left was she was doing and ran off into the hangar again.

Everyone looked as Lucchini ran away in fear. "Sorry about that. But she is a good girl." Minna said as in an apology.

Heidemarie looked kind of confused by the quick turn of events, but then regained her refined posture. "A- As I was trying to say was that I just would like to visit Flying Officer Litvyak before I take off for the night watch." Heidemarie then asked Minna.

"Well, normally we wouldn't let anyone in besides the doctors but since you have come all this way to take over for her I can let you see her. I can also show you to your temporary room." Minna replied.

"Thank you, commander Minna."

Minna took the lead and led her past most of the other witches who looked at the new witch that walked past them.

Minna opened the door to the infirmary and let herself and Heidemarie inside and then closed the door again. They went up to the bed where Sanya were lying and looked like as if she was in a deep sleep.

Heidemarie looked at her with a sad expression. "What really happened to her? You never gave me the details."

"She and Flying Officer Eila were out on night patrol, when they encountered a Neuroi. They became outnumbered and for some unknown reason Sanya's magic disappeared incredibly fast and she passed out from magic consumption and got hit by the Neuroi." Minna explained.

"Where is Flying Officer Eila now?" Heidemarie asked.

"I confined her to her room for three days for an outburst directed at our medic. Apparently she has been crying most of the time it seems. She is the one that care about Sanya the most and of course I feel kind of bad for her but I have to get her to realize what she can and cannot do."

"I see." Heidemarie said looking down to the floor. "I just hope that she will recover really fast."

"Yes, we can all hope. But now let's leave her alone for a while."

Minna and Heidemarie left the infirmary and went for their guest's room. "But now for you room will be beside Miyafuji and Lynne's room. We have only a bed and a table in that room since we rarely use it. But if it is something that you want for your room, just ask us so don't you worry about it. We will inform you when Sanya wakes up so you will meet her as soon as possible." Minna said as they were walking past Eila's and Sanya's room.

The conversation outside the room somewhat caught Eila's attention. "Who is Minna talking to right now? Do we have a guest? Anyway why did they talk about Sanya right now?" Eila thought to herself. "But speaking about Sanya, I hate to disobey orders but I have to visit the infirmary for Sanya for myself."

Determined she went to the door to listen to them as they apparently went into Heidemarie's room so she quietly opened the door, closed it and sneaked away to the infirmary. Gathering courage and taking a few breaths as well as checking if someone was near, she opened the door, went in and then closed the door.

Seeing as the sheets and covers was clean and white as snow it seemed like she wasn't hurt anymore, much to Eila's relief. But she went up beside the white-haired girl and gently stroke her cheek and sat down beside her and grabbed hold of her small and tender hand. "Sanya. I wish you were here with me right now. It's only nearly been one day and still this is the longest time I have been away from you since a long time ago."

Erica was passing by the infirmary as she was going to her own room to go to sleep, but was distracted as she heard a voice from the room that didn't come from Yoshika or the other doctor. Knowing it is bad to eavesdrop, she was slightly interested in what was said in the room so she put her ear towards the door.

Eila felt tears fall down her cheeks and landing on Sanya's hand. "I know I am the one to blame for leaving you alone and being the cause of your magic consumption, but I want to make it up to you in any way I can. I understand if you hate me but I just want to know that you are safe. And when I see what state you are in it makes my heart ache like crazy." Her voice cracked slightly as she felt more tears coming and she couldn't keep herself from lying down on Sanya's chest.

Erica looked down on the floor since she could kind of understand how it felt, to lose someone that close to her. She almost lost Trude once but Miyafuji managed to save her as well. But this case wasn't exactly like the one with Trude. Trude's injury was lethal but she didn't fall into a coma like Sanya. And she could feel the sorrow in Eila's voice in regards to that she see herself to be the cause of all this. Maybe she just took the weight all on herself but if Erica could see the bigger picture of it all, she might have seen it from a different point of view.

But suddenly she heard some voices coming from the stairs, and it sounded like Mio and Yoshika. She could also make out that they were talking about Sanya. She didn't have much time to act so she quickly and quietly opened the infirmary door went in and closed it just as quietly.

Eila noticed someone coming into the room and saw Erica running into the room through her tear-filled eyes. "W-What are you…?" She said surprised until Erica held up her finger to imply that she would be quiet.

Erica grabbed Eila's hand and whispered to her "Hide under that bed." Erica said, dragging Eila with her to the other bed in the room that no one was using. "Miyafuji is coming here with Mio. I think you will get punished for leaving your room and for visit the infirmary that we are not permitted to enter."

Though cramped under the bed both of them managed to get under the bed when Yoshika and Mio entered the room. Lucky for Erica and Eila the sheets from the bed were plenty wide so they nearly touched the floor so they were pretty hidden from sight.

From what Eila could see from under the bed, apparently they were just cleaning up a little and they booth saw and heard metal trays and tools being moved around in the room. After a few minutes Yoshika and Mio left the room and Erica and Eila crawled out from under the bed.

Eila turned to Erica who looked at her with a smile. T- Thanks, for informing me that they were coming. But how did you know I was in here?"

Erica looked away a little bit before looking back at Eila. "Please, try not to get mad at me but I know I can't stop you. I actually heard your voice from the infirmary, and since you were out of your room, I was wondering what you was doing in here. I know it is bad to eavesdrop but I was kind of interested in what happened."

Eila looked surprisingly calm, much to Erica's surprise. "I see. Well, I guess I can tell you. The main reason that Sanya exhausted her magic so quickly was because she let me lay on her stomach and carrying me for a good while. I was going to do the same to her, but it was about that time the neuroi attacked us."

Eila then told the rest to Erica who seemed to listen to every word with interest. "So that is how all this happened and that's why this is all my fault." Eila said looking down at the floor looking guilty.

"You shouldn't blame yourself so hard. From what I heard you tried to focus all the fire on you and finish it fast so she wouldn't run out magic before it was too late, right? So from what I gather from this I would say that this is just that the Neuroi didn't act like you thought it would. So don't blame yourself." Erica told Eila and gave her a firm and warm hug. Eila responded with returning the hug.

After a few seconds they separated and smiled to each other. "Thank you very much again. But why did you decide to help me, anyway? I didn't get to know that." Eila asked sincerely.

"I know how close you and Sanya are and I can see how much you are suffering and I think that this is the least I can do to help you." Erica replied and gave Eila a bright smile.

Eila gave her smile in return. "You sure know how to cheer people up."

"Yeah, I have Trude to deal with, so I had to learn." She said with a grin. "But anyway I think we should get out of here before more people come."

"That may be for the best." Eila said in agreement. "But just let me say good bye to Sanya first."

"Of course." Erica waited by the door and watched their temporary farewell.

Eila went up to the bed and just looked at Sanya for a short while. She then focused her eyes on Sanya's lips, and felt her cheeks heat up a little. She closed in a bit and she noticed Erica sneak up from the side to get a better look of what Eila was doing. But she didn't care about that for now, though she hesitated before deciding to give Sanya a farewell kiss.

"Is it really okay for me to take her first kiss when she isn't awake? She would probably get mad if she knew." Eila thought to herself but was still not sure whether to give that kiss or not.

"Are you thinking about taking her first kiss?" Erica asked in a curious tone. "I think it is alright. I wouldn't count it as her first since she isn't conscious. So I think it is alright."

"When you put it like that… It might be alright." Eila said giving in and closed the gap and engaged in a deep and passionate kiss against the soft and small lips of her love. If she only had to make a complaint about the kiss, was that Sanya was in no position of kissing back, if she ever would do it even if she was awake. She slowly then left Sanya's sweet lips and stood up again.

Erica looked like she witnessed a phenomenon. "Whoa, Eila with that passion in your kiss makes me want a kiss from you too." Erica said with what looked like fire in her eyes.

"I do not wish to sound like a stuck up bitch, but my kisses are reserved for Sanya only. I guess you have to give those kisses to Trude in that case."

"Good idea. I will have to try that later." Erica replied with enthusiasm. "But now we will have to get out, just wait a minute, I'll check and see if anyone passes by."

"Nope, it's clear, let's go." Erica said and Eila waved good bye to Sanya and then she left the infirmary after Erica.

Without any further obstacles Eila got back to her room and after thanking Erica for the help she went to sleep for the night. After all this talk she had with Erica this day had made her feeling much better. Of course she was still deeply saddened by Sanya's coma and she couldn't wish for anything more than her waking up. And after thinking a little while about that she fell asleep and had pretty decent dreams this night.

* * *

**Chapter 2 End**


	3. Chapter 3

**An Expanding Threat**

**Sorry for have been holding up on this chapter for a while. I've been pretty lazy, so I haven't had it in me to upload it.**  
**Anyway, because of this wait I've had some time to work on the chapter 4, so it will be up in probably in an hour.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Wake Up Story**

2 days has passed and Sanya was still stuck at the infirmary and showing no signs of waking up yet. Thanks to Erica, Eila has snuck into the infirmary without being seen. If it was possible, Eila looked more in pain than the first day after Sanya had been shot. The only thing that made her standing up was Erica's cheerful attitude. She also was visited by Shirley and Lucchini one time and that cheered her up a bit as well. She did also apologize to Yoshika for her behavior when she was saving Sanya at the battlefield, which cleared up most of Yoshika's doubt of Eila.

Eila slowly opened her far too tired eyes that have had too little sleep during the last couple days. She hasn't felt the joy of having Sanya surprisingly falling asleep next to Eila after her night watch in a couple of days.

After getting up in slow motion, she leaned on the wall to go forward. This was the day her room confinement was over, so she could go down to the kitchen to eat something. She got to the door and it slowly opened and she still leaned on the wall while walking down to the kitchen.

From behind Mio was walking out of her room with a light yawn. She caught up with Eila quite fast to greet her. "Good morning, Eila, did yo…" She stopped in the middle of the sentence. "Hey, you look terrible. Have you been getting any sleep at all?" She raised her voice a little.

"Technically no. About 1 hour yesterday and about as much this night." Eila said in a worn out voice.

"Why didn't you tell us? We have sleeping pills. For today just take one directly and go to bed." She gently dragged Eila to the kitchen where everyone was seated except for Shirley, but you could hear a striker engine roaring from the hangar so Eila could guess what she was doing.

"Just go and take a slice of bread or something to fill your stomach while I try to find the pills." Mio said.

Eila did as she was told and took a place beside Perrine by the table and reached for a slice of bread and a glass of milk. "Eila-san, those bags under your eyes…? Haven't you slept anything?" Yoshika asked from across the table.

"I wouldn't say I have. About 2 hours during the last 40 hours. Though I'm starting to feel pretty tired."

"No kidding." Barkhorn cut in. "Not many could say that they are perfectly fine with sleeping that little."

"Well, Mio is checking for sleeping pills right now." Eila replied with a blank expression while slowly chewing on her sandwich.

After a few minutes of rattle from kettles, knives and forks, it looked like Mio found the pills. "Finally, they were quite well hidden. Here, Eila, take one." She said and gave one of the pills to the other witch.

With the glass of milk she swallowed the pill and ate up the rest of the sandwich and then left for her room. "Good night again everyone." She said to everyone as she walked away like a corpse.

Everyone replied and Erica who was done with her breakfast decided to help her to her room. As it was easy to walk down the stairs, it wasn't just as easy to walk up the stairs when Eila felt like she could collapse at any step and she probably would, if Erica wouldn't have helped her up.

After the walk upwards they got to Eila's room. She got help up to her bed where Erica carefully let go of Eila and backed off slightly while Eila crawled back under the cover again. "Good night again. I hope you can get some sleep for now. I'll wake you up if anything would happen." Erica assured Eila with a smile as Eila closed her eyes.

Sneakily Erica left the room and closed the door just as quietly before going back down with the others in the kitchen.

As the day progressed the day was filled with some endurance training as the unit had to run several laps around the base. Mio who was supervising the training stood quietly and watched as Trude and Shirley was running furiously next to each other as to not lose against the other as they crossed the finish line at the same time. After a while the rest crossed the finish line and the last one to finish was a not so enthusiastic Erica who didn't care all too much.

And while the team was resting after the run the doctor came out into the open. "She has finally woken up. Sanya woke up just a little while ago." That was all she got to say as the expression on everyone's faces lightened up and the energy that they just lost a while ago didn't keep them from quickly get up on their legs and run in the direction on the infirmary.

Mio was leading the group after the doctor and asked everybody but Mio to stay put in the hallway for now. Although some of them were displeased they could understand the reasons. The doctor opened the door and Yoshika could catch a glimpse of a woken Sanya before the door closed.

In the infirmary Mio carefully approached Sanya who looked a little dizzy. Mio carefully then sat down on the bed where Sanya was lying in. "Sanya? Are you okay?" She asked with a gentle and kind voice.

Sanya nodded faintly. "Mm… I feel quite alright, but I also feel kind of dizzy. And my stomach feels quite weird. I just remember me and Eila was fighting a Neuroi and then everything turned black." Then it looked like she realized something. "Eila! Is Eila alright?"

Mio gave her a reassuring smile. "She is just fine. She has only had problems sleeping since you passed out. She has been depressed as well, but she is alright."

Sanya looked like she has been saved by some divine being. "I'm so happy that she is alright." She then turned her head to Mio again. "For how long have I been passed out?"

"For about 3 days now. But we are all happy that you are back with us."

"Could I see Eila please?" Sanya asked and looked at Mio with a questioning look.

"I think she is in deep sleep right now. As I said before, she has not been sleeping well and I gave her a sleeping pill before so she could get some at least. But I will notify her as soon as she wakes up. But you should also get some additional sleep. The others would like to say hello but let's wait with that until you gotten some more sleep." Mio replied and stood up.

"Major Sakamoto? I'm sorry I broke one of the strikers." Sanya then said a bit displeased.

"Hahaha! Why are you apologizing? It's no big deal. What really matters is that you are safe. You can buy new striker units and equipment, but you can't buy back a good friend." Mio said sincerely with a gentle smile.

"I come in and check you up this evening and see how you feel. Sleep well." She then said and with a smile and a nod from Sanya, Mio left the room with the doctor.

The rest of the unit was waiting outside for her Mio come out. "So? How was she doing?" Shirley asked first of them.

"She was doing pretty fine. She was just a little dizzy and tired so I told her to rest a little more before we pack her with questions." She replied. "Understood?" She then asked all of them.

"Yes, ma'am," They replied like as in a choir and walked down to the training ground again.

It was completely dark outside when Eila woke up. She rubbed her eyes and she felt a lot better than before. Out of curiosity, she wondered what time it was and since she didn't have a clock in the room she decided to go down to the kitchen, as she was starving as well.

She opened the door and started to go downstairs and heard some voices from the living room. She went in and found only Minna, Mio and Trude sitting there, each with a cup of tea.

"Oh, you're finally awake? You slept in longer than expected." Minna said in a cheerful tone.

"Really? What time is it?" She asked back.

"It nearly 23.30 now. You have been sleeping nearly 15 hours straight. We were about to go to sleep now. But right now I bet you are not tired at all."

"That's right, I was thinking about taking a bath."

"That's alright, but even though you have been sleeping all day, try to get some sleep tonight, since tomorrow you'll be joining the morning exercise again." Mio cut in.

"I'll do that then, I guess. Good night." Eila said and walked towards the kitchen to get something to eat. She just took some of what was left from the lunch they had earlier.

After filling up her stomach she went to the dressing room to remove her clothes before going in to the bath.

While she removed her clothes she couldn't wait to get into the nice bath. She hasn't had a bath ever since Sanya got injured so she felt kinda dirty.

Walking outside and seeing the star-filled sky and felt the nice slightly chilly breeze and the warm and humid air surround her, and even though she have been sleeping through the whole day she felt that this weather made her feel pretty sleepy.

Arriving at the bath she dropped the towel she was bringing with her at the sight which she didn't think she would see for a week at least. "Sanya…?"

Sanya turned around to see the one she wanted to see the most as well and her facial expression. "Eila?"

Eila stood just for a few seconds just looking at her and couldn't stop the tears from running down her cheeks. As she couldn't hold herself she ran into the water and right to Sanya as she wanted to embrace her after all this time but have been unable to, since she have been holding herself back as she didn't know if Sanya loved her in the same way Eila loved her.

As Eila reached her arms around the white-haired girl in a tight hug, Sanya could feel the great wave of affection from Eila. "Eila, it hurts. You're pressing too hard." Sanya said as she felt Eila's embrace tighten bit by bit.

"Ah, I'm sorry. B- But I am just so happy that I can't contain it anymore. You have been out for just about 3 days and that has been the longest I have been without you since we met in Brittania when we started as witches. I will never let you out of my reach again. I love you, Sanya. I really love you." Eila replied as she let up on her embrace and looked deep into Sanya's eyes, while her tears still came running down.

Sanya blushed as she felt the happiness that Eila was expressing from her voice. Sanya then gave in and responded back with an equally firm hug, which she felt that Eila wanted as her body became really relaxed. Eila then let of her grip of Sanya and rested her head against Sanya's neck. "I really love you as well, Eila. You always take care of me no matter what. And you are always by my side no matter what and I can always rely on you."

Sanya changed how she sat so Eila slide down between her cleavage. "Isn't this more comfortable?" Sanya then asked while putting her hand on Eila's head and gently stroke her fingers through Eila's hair.

Eila's felt her cheeks fiercely becoming hotter as she now was in Sanya's arms. And the stimulation she felt from Sanya stroking through her hair, she just gave in to Sanya.

Noticing how good Eila felt, Sanya pulled the beige-haired witch closer to her until they were cheek-to-cheek. "I just remembered a thing. Hartmann told me that you stole my first kiss while I was unconscious." She said with a mischievous look on her face as she looked at Eila.

"Ehh… well… I guess you could say heat of the moment… or something like that." She replied with a stiff expression with an equally stiff voice. "Damn you Hartmann, I thought you were going to keep quiet about this." She then thought to herself.

"But even so, I am sorry, but I want to choose myself who I give my first kiss to." Sanya said while blushing slightly and saw Eila looking down in disappointment.

"So you had someone else that you like? I guess so. You are a girl and I am a girl. Of course it wouldn't work." Eila said and with a displeased look she rose from Sanya's chest and prepared to leave from the bath until Sanya grabbed her arm and stood up herself.

And pulling Eila towards herself, she flung her arms around her and gave her a deep and intimate kiss, much to Eila's surprise. After the kiss ended Eila stood still and dumbfounded and looked at a really embarrassed Sanya. "B- But you said…"

"I said I wanted to give away my first kiss myself, but who said I didn't want to give it to you?" Sanya said with a giggle and dragged Eila down in the water again.

After a short while when they once again calmed down again after the water-fight, Sanya was leaning on Eila's chest. "Sanya? Are you getting tired?"

Sanya nodded slightly. "Mm, if we don't get out now I might fall asleep right now. I haven't recovered from being shot down yet. " Eila then helped her up and they held hands down to the changing room.

"You aren't at all mad at me from the battle?" Eila asked Sanya on the way.

"Huh? Why should I be?" Sanya replied and looked confused.

"Well, you know I kinda… left you alone while going for the core. I can't get over how bad I feel for having left you alone there or else it wouldn't have ended up this way. The problem is that you are so considerate that you haven't even said anything about it, but I won't be alright unless you scold me or anything like it." Eila continued as she looked at the ground.

Sanya just giggled and gave Eila a sweet kiss. "That's just ridiculous. You did it to end it really fast, didn't you? I just wasn't strong enough to shield it off for enough time. So why should I be angry at you. But if you want to be punished no matter what, I may punish you with enough cuddling so that you won't sleep for the entire night." Sanya then said with a genuine and warm smile that made Eila blush.

Eila blushed and smiled while she kissed Sanya back. "I- I guess I can accept that punishment."

After they got back to the room, Eila helped Sanya get out of her clothes, and then guided Sanya into Eila's own bed. After pulling the cover over them Sanya grabbed hold around Eila's stomach and pulled her closed and burrowed herself into Eila's chest again. "Naww…" Eila said and sounded pretty disappointed. "Now I can't see your sleeping face when you are like this."

"Just for tonight, please." Sanya asked with a gentle voice.

"Mmm… okay, but only because you are so cute." Eila replied to Sanya and started to stroke her soft, white hair. "But you can't fall asleep just yet. I still haven't got anything of my punishment."

"I'm too tired right now, so I would be unable to keep up for even a shorter time of the punishment. But if you let me sleep now I might give you a small portion of it in the morning."

"I would love to but major Sakamoto told me that I had to join them in on the morning exercise again." Eila said with a disappointed expression.

"Again? You didn't do it while I was unconscious?" Sanya then asked.

"I got confined to my room for yelling at Miyafuji when she healed you. I have apologized but I still think she is still a bit too aware of me now."

"What did you yell at her?

"I can't really remember but I only know I over-reacted when she checked on you right after you were shot. I regret it now since she is a little too reserved against me now. But I hope that she will loosen up a little again when you are around again."

"We can discuss more of this tomorrow. Good night Eila." Sanya said and kissed Eila's neck.

Eila responded with lift Sanya's head a little and gently kissed her on the nose and then on the forehead. "Good night Sanya."

And after a while Sanya fell asleep in the arms of Eila, who also fell asleep shortly after with Sanya's arms around her stomach and her warm breath against her chest.

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**Chapter 3 End**


	4. Chapter 4

******An Expanding Threat**

******Well, here is the second chapter for today. The fifth chapter is probably someway  
around halfway done by paper, so it shouldn't take too long to have it done.**

******Now Please Enjoy Chapter 4!**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Air Superiority  
**

It was an amazing beautiful morning when the wake-up call rang out through the base, and life quickly started to appear in the halls. The ones that didn't appear outside before Mio was Eila and Sanya, but Sanya was of course excused. "Okay, did anyone meet Eila in the hall?" Mio asked, looking around.

Everyone shook their head. Mio sighted faintly. "I'll go and wake her up. As warm-up exercise you'll run 3 laps around the base." She said and left for Eila's room.

As she reached Eila's room, she opened and walked up to the bed and saw Sanya cling on to Eila's stomach and saw Eila looking really peaceful, and considering her sleep deprivation the last days, Mio was pretty relieved that now that Sanya was back, Eila could also go back to her usual demeanor.

Deciding that she'll be excused from this morning exercise because they looked pretty adorable, and for the fact that Eila was actually sleeping. She returned back to the exercise field when Shirley and Trude ran past the goal for their second lap as the other was a while after them.

Eila woke up a while after and found Sanya cling on to her stomach and was in the same position as she was when they went to sleep. At least now she could see her sleeping face and Eila carefully moved Sanya up a bit so her sleeping face was right in front of Eila who couldn't stop staring at the sleeping, cute 14-year old witch.

When she tried to go back to sleep, she heard Mio's faint voice through the window. Out of curiosity she looked out the window and saw the rest of the unit stretching at the moment. "Damn it, I overslept. I totally gonna get it now." She said to herself and quickly got dressed and hurried out the door.

In the hall she met another white-haired person that she didn't recognize and Eila stopped in her tracks. "Ah, excuse me, but who are you?" She asked the person in front of her.

"Oh, I believe we haven't met. I am Heidemarie W. Schnaufer, a night witch sent here from Karlsland. I was contacted but Commander Minna that Sanya was hurt in battle a few days ago, so I came here to take her place for a while and I want to meet her when I can." She replied in a pretty quiet, shy voice.

"I see, well I think it's great that we have another night witch for now. Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen, from Suomus. But are you a close acquaintance of Sanya perhaps?"

"I haven't met her personally but we have communicated a few times when we are out on night flight, so I wanted to meet her personally and talk to her." Heidemarie said.

"I would love to introduce you to each other but she is still sleeping at the moment, but I'm sure she'll wake up in a short while, or otherwise I am still going to wake her up in time for breakfast." Eila replied to her.

"I see. Well then I look forward to meet her by breakfast then. Good bye for now then." She said with a faint smile and gave her a small bow when she walked away.

Eila the hurried out to the exercise ground and got up beside Mio. "I'm so sorry that I'm late." Eila said while panting since the running there.

"Eila? So you came anyway. I left you sleeping since you looked so peaceful sleeping and since your recent sleep deprivation, I thought I could be a little nice to let you sleep in despite what I said yesterday. Well, now that you are here anyway, you can join the others while they are going to run around the base before going inside to have breakfast." Mio said and looked like she was in quite a good mood today.

Eila did as she was told and quickly ran up next to the others and ended the running course just behind Shirley and Trude.

On the way back to the base for breakfast, Eila complained to Erica for telling Sanya about the kiss in the infirmary.

While the other was preparing the breakfast Eila went up to wake up Sanya and notifying Heidemarie that Sanya had woken up.

During the breakfast Sanya and Heidemarie was talking to each other most of the time of the breakfast much to Eila displeasure.

"Mio? Can I talk to you for a bit?" Minna said as she walked into the kitchen with a paper in her hand and it looked like it was pretty serious. Mio quickly left her seat and walked out of the room with Minna.

"I wonder what that is all about." Trude said looking at Erica with a wondering look.

"Knowing Minna I guess it is about a mission plan or something. She always gets too worked up about all this. I guess this is one of those times." Erica said with a quite monotone voice as she took the last bite of the piece of bread she had.

After a short while Mio and Minna returned. "After the breakfast I want everyone to meet in the meeting room." Mio said.

"Eeeh, but I want to play outside." Lucchini pouted and lost all her built up energy.

"You may have time for that after this meeting, but this is a very important matter." Mio continued and then she and Minna sat down again by the table to continue with the breakfast.

When the breakfast was over all of the witches was seated in the meeting room and the blackboard in front was featuring a picture with what could be a neuroi. Minna and Mio entered the room after everyone.

"We got a transmission earlier today regarding an approaching Neuroi that is approaching our base and left Gallia a while ago. By their calculation it was estimated that it will arrive at our base around 12 AM tomorrow." Minna said.

"So is it something special about this since we rarely talk specifically about a neuroi when we are in this room, right?" Trude asked.

"Yes, that is correct." Mio took tone now. "This will be a tough neuroi to take down. This one is flying at an altitude of about 20 000 meter above ground. Being a high-altitude neuroi, it is however more dangerous than the one that Eila and Sanya took down just about 2 months ago. That one moved pretty slow and only used drones that got shot down by one bullet. Minna, will do take more details?" Mio asked her.

"Yes. This neuroi attack using an immensely powerful beam to attack with, but however, being shot from that height it loses some of its punch when it has traveled 20 000 meter. So when we are going to strike it we will have to avoid it at all cost since our shield might be useless against this firepower. So for this mission we need co-operation between Eila and Trude."

"Ehh?" Eila said surprised at that announcement. "Me?"

"Your magic to see into the future will be vital in this operation. Just let me explain the plan. As I said we need you Eila, for your magic of looking into the future and we will need Trude for her strength. I will have to apologize to both of you two, since you will be using some dangerous equipment so I am really sorry but you will need it." Minna said with an apologizing tone.

"What equipment are we talking about Minna?" Trude cut in.

"Both of you are going to use the prototype Jet Strikers that you have been using before." Minna said slightly depressed.

Both Trude's and Eila's eyes opened wide in response to what Minna said. "Are you sure we need them?" Eila asked to be sure.

"I'm afraid so. I would be relieved if we could avoid using them but we really do need them. You will attack in a formation that Trude will keep the lead and Eila will be close behind." She showed on the blackboard. "Trude's strength will be need since we will have to use the same weapons that came with the Jet Strikers last time. We need to take this neuroi down fast so heavy guns are necessary. And Eila will keep herself behind Trude, so if you see that a beam is coming, tell Trude to which direction she should dodge." She said and looked at Eila. "And the Jet Strikers is really needed since the usual strikers does not normally exceed up to more than 10 000 meter up in the air, and you need them for quick dodging. You will have to get lots of sleep tonight and make sure to eat well before the mission. Karlsland fortunately had 2 prototypes of the Jet Strikers and we will receive them late tonight." Minna said and looked pretty sad as it looked like she was apologizing again.

Mio looked at Minna for a bit before took over the last words from there. "Everyone, dismissed." She then went and put her hand on her shoulder to help her calm down.

Afterwards most of the witches went up to Minna to cheer her up a little before leaving the room. Since it was a nice day outside, Lucchini and Shirley suggested that going to the beach would solve all the problems and sad things for now.

Spending most of the day playing at the beach and then evening fell over Romagna. From inside the living room where most of them were, reading, relaxing or playing with cards, they could all hear a plane coming in.

"That's probably the Jet Strikers that is here." Minna said and rose from the sofa and walked from the door, with Eila and Trude behind since they were going to fly them. "Erica, you're not coming?" Minna then asked. "Ursula is delivering them personally and you haven't met her since she came and picked up what was left of the other Jet Striker."

"Ursula is here? Then I'm coming to." She replied and she rose from the sofa as well and began walking out with the rest.

They arrived outside the base when the personnel were unloading the two pairs of Jet Strikers from the cargo hold of the plane. "Nice to meet you again, Ursula. We're happy that you could arrive here on such short notice, and that you can help us with these strikers again." Minna said with a smile when they met.

"Nice to meet you all again, and yes, it was really fortunate that we had two prototypes ready. We have tried to fix the flaw it had last time but we haven't tested them enough yet, so I'm not sure if it will be as dangerous as the last time, but I hope nothing will go wrong." Ursula replied.

When the strikers and the added equipment had been loaded into the hangar Eila and Barkhorn could inspect them and it was the same weapons as the last time.

As it then became rather late both Barkhorn and Eila went to bed earlier than the others, Sanya wanted to go to bed the same time as Eila, which Eila didn't had any objections against.

The night went by peacefully and about 8 pm Eila woke up next to Sanya who ones again had a just as adorable sleeping face as yesterday and she resist of giving Sanya a wake-up kiss.

As Eila hoped, Sanya woke up. "Good morning, Eila. Could I get one more? I'm still not really awake." She said with a smile on her lips.

And sure enough, unable to withstand that smile, she engaged in a deep and passionate kiss which stimulated Eila as much to make her ears and tail come out. Sanya's body reacted likewise and her ears and tail came out as well. She responded with a just as intense hug and held Eila close to her.

"Sanya, you are so beautiful." Eila said after the kiss ended. "B- but that last kiss… I want to continue with it." She then said and looked at Sanya who just giggled at Eila's reaction.

She slowly closed in on Sanya and closed the gap between their lips. Again, both Eila and Sanya felt the surge of pleasure run through their bodies. Eila's left hand instinctively moved under Sanya's bra which made Sanya's body tremble slightly. Her hand didn't stop and she carefully caressed her left breast and Sanya's body continued to tremble.

Sanya broke away from the kiss when Eila also used her right hand to play with Sanya's right breast as well. Eila continued to Sanya's ear. "I love you Sanya. I love you more than anything else in this world." She then nibbled a little playfully on the ear and then slowly moved down kissing her neck all the way down to her collarbones.

Eila looked the beautiful white-haired witch in the eyes if it was okay to continue any further. With a faint nod from Sanya, Eila slowly made her way to Sanya's cleavage. Eila was now on top of Sanya and without further warning Trude opened the door.

"Are you up yet, Ei… la?" She stood dumbfounded in the doorway and looked at them with a shocked expression and she got the same expression back from Eila with her eyes wide open.

"A-, A- At least knock before enter another ones room." Eila said and quickly pulled the cover over both her and Sanya so Trude only could see Eila's eyes.

"Ah… W- W- What were you two doing? To do something this shameful in the morning when we have an important mission in just a few hours." Trude said with a lecturing but hesitant voice while blushing pretty hard.

Eila then sat up and she had a pretty irritated expression on her face and looked Trude deep in her eyes. "That is exactly why we are doing this. What if something happen when we are doing this mission? I bet you haven't forgotten what happened to Sanya just a few days ago. Something like that could happen to any one of us or maybe even worse. And I want to be really close to Sanya before I go out on this mission. Have you ever even heard of the word love, or have your love for rules overwritten any romantic feelings against human beings?" Eila was talking as she walked from the bed and up to Trude who now looked like she was quite uncomfortable and pressed into a corner as she wasn't prepared that Eila would take this forceful approach.

"I- I do what know what love is but what you two w-were doing is just too shameful."

"No, it isn't the slightest. It is perfectly normal to do things like this when you are in love and the only reason why you think it is shameful is that you probably have never experienced love for anyone." She walked over to the bed and the turned around one last time before crawling down under the cover next to Sanya again. "Next time you try to lecture about anything I suggest that you have any experience in that topic first." She said and crawled back and cuddled up to Sanya.

The sight made Trude's heart ache and she left the room quietly and the closed the door behind her and leaned against it, closed her eyes and sighed pretty loudly.

"What are you sighing to much about, Trude?" Erica said, as she had sneakily walked up to Trude and was now standing and now had her own face about 10 cm from Trude's troubled face.

Trude was surprised by Erica's quiet approach and jumped a little and when she saw how close Erica's carefree smiling face was, she felt her cheeks warm up a little.

"Ehh, w- well, I was scolded by Eila for various reasons. And I guess I can't say anything against it since I guess all things that she said about me was pretty much correct." She said and looked down to the floor as she looked pretty taken.

Erica reminded herself that she has not seen Trude like this many times. The one that she can remember most clearly was when Chris was injured, although that was a far worse case. Thinking that she could ease up Trude's mood a little, she reached over Trude's shoulders and gave her a firm hug. Expecting Trude to shove her away in embarrassment as she usually does, this time she accepted the hug and hugged back, which surprised Erica.

"Trude?" Erica asked, sounding a little confused. "Are you really okay?"

Trude also rested her head against Erica's shoulder and Erica could feel Trude's stiffness disappear and could relax in her arms.

After 30 seconds they broke the hug and Trude's mood eased up and she even grew a smile that made Erica grew an equally big smile. "Thanks. Now I feel a lot better."

"Then I am glad that I could help with anything and I would do anything to help you in the mission later. But let's go down and have breakfast."

The clock was 11 AM and the unit was all gathered in the main hangar. They were all standing in a half-circle around Minna, Mio and Ursula.

"Everyone, all witches are supposed to fly as low as possible to the ocean while Eila and Trude attacks the target. And to the attack-team, if you notice or feel any abnormalities in the Jet Strikers, cut off from it so we can refrain to let it run out of control again. I won't let you two risk it." Minna said in an order-like voice.

The Jet Striker was loaded outside to minimize the time they would be in the air no matter how small.

The unit used the final 10 minutes of wishing good luck to the attack-team and Eila got a good luck-kiss from Sanya.

They both equipped themselves with their respective weapons. Trude armed herself with the heavy 50 mm cannon with a high ammunition count while Eila was equipped with her usual armaments of her MG-42 and her Soumi M1931 submachine gun.

When all witches had equipped their own striker units and was in flight already, while Trude and Eila were in the Jet Strikers that was still placed in the loader. Minna contacted the attack-team through the transponder.

"The target is approaching in a high speed. Are you both ready?"

"Yes, ma'am." They both replied in a confident and steady voice. They were in start position and were ready to shoot away at any given moment.

The transponder sparked and Minna's voice was heard. "Attack-team, Take-off!"

Both witches quickly rose in the sky and after just a few seconds, they passed 10 000 meters in altitude. Eila held her position slightly behind Trude and they could identify the target soon enough. When they were inside the range of 5000 meters from the neuroi, the first wave of attacks started raining down on them and Eila was quick as usual with the uptake on predicting its attacks.

"Left, right, up, further up, dive…!" Eila said and both evaded the beams if ever so close. Eila's heart was beating pretty fast as the beams passed by and she could even feel the heat from the slightly bigger and more concentrated beams than from the weaker neuroi's they have encountered.

3000 meters away from the target Trude fired the first 50 mm shell at the neuroi. And from that distance they could not make sure if that shell did hit or miss the target. Coming in even a little bit closer, the beams that were fired against them increased in ferocity.

Eila could feel her senses tire out a little. Usually she wouldn't have to dodge this many beams by herself, and also by this occasion when she had to direct Trude to dodge and use a Jet Striker that was more magic consuming that the usual striker unit she use.

"Do you think we… left… can hurry this up a little? My… far right! …senses are becoming a little dull." Eila said and as she sounded pretty tired.

"Try to be a little bolder in your dodging so we might create an opening so might get some free space without having to dodge so we just can charge." Trude said with her focus straight forward and she showed no signs of being tired yet.

When they were close to 2000 meters away Trude fired another shot at the neuroi. This time they could see the little damage they have done. "Only a scratch? How tough armor does this one have?"

"We need to get even closer, Eila. We have to increase our speed a bit. We have to go in to at least 1000 meters. Try to keep up." Trude increased her speed slowly to not get too far away from Eila too fast.

Dodging wildly in a high speed they came into a quite clean view for point blank shooting and Trude steadily lifted the 50 mm cannon and fired away a quite a few shells before it was time to dodge again.

They could now at least see the damage pretty clearly. The armor was incredibly hard and it took 4 and maybe 5 shells just to get though. The inside of the neuroi on the other hand was ridiculously fragile and it looked like a big part inside of it already shattered by the one shell that came through.

"Eila, just a final push to come into close quarters combat and to destroy its inside where the core probably is."

They both pushed the strikers to the limit to engage in a quick and swift fashion. While Eila continuously shouted directions in response to the neuroi's fierce attack pattern, Trude was in full go to put up a barrage of cannon shells to smash against the tough armor.

They closed the gap in a moment and when Trude has opened a big enough hole, she dropped the 50 mm cannon. "50 mm cannon coming down!" She said through the transponder. "Eila, please hand me the MG42."

When she was handed the MG42 they flew through the hole they had made through the neuroi. "Let's bring it down before I pass out." Eila said and pulled the trigger to start tearing the neuroi down from the inside out.

After shooting for a few seconds, Trude tore down the last that covered the core from being visible. And after a few more rounds the core shattered and the neuroi turned into an explosion of white crystals.

"Releasing the jet strikers!" Both Eila and Trude said through the transponder and let go of the jet strikers and they began to fall themselves.

Eila began to feel sleepy by a consumption of magic that she was not used to. After falling a bit she was met by Shirley who picked her up in midair, and Trude was picked up by Minna and Erica.

Everyone returned back to the hangar to celebrate a successful victory. Eila and Trude got a lot of praise for taking down that powerful neuroi with that dangerous and mighty equipment.

"Everyone, because of this I suggest we make some great food to celebrate and to restore their energy. Do any of you two have any requests?" Yoshika asked looking at both Eila and Trude.

"I think we can ask Eila for today. After all, it is thanks to her that I am alive. There were moments that I wouldn't have been able to dodge some of the neuroi's beams, and I don't think anyone could do that without her help. If anyone should be celebrated it is Eila." Trude said and looked at Eila and gave her a wide smile.

Eila gave a tired but genuine smile back at Trude and then rose from her sitting position but it looked like she had some problems standing up without some extra effort. "Thank you, but you can decide. I'm gonna go and lie down for a bit. It seems like that striker consumed a little more magic than I thought when I was flying. But I'll see you all a little later." Eila said and walked away a little awkwardly leaning on Sanya this once.

"Let me help!" Trude said walking up next to Eila and helped her by lending a shoulder.

"Oh… thank you again! I'm not meaning to be rude but you seem to be a little extra nice. Why?" Eila then asked, looking a little surprised.

"It's just that I'm sorry for what I have said to you earlier and how good you instructed me to dodge, just now in the battle. So I'm just thankful how you did." Trude replied with a gentle smile.

She helped Eila into her and Sanya's room and let Sanya handle the rest to not intrude too much on their privacy. "Just have a good long rest to fill up your strength." She said before she left the room.

Sanya helped Eila into the bed and crawled down beside her and held Eila tight against her chest which calmed down her beige-haired partner. "My own hero." Sanya said as in like a whisper and began to stroke through Eila hair.

Eila giggled at Sanya's praise. "Nah, I'm nothing as grand as a hero, but thank you darling." She replied with another giggle and reached around Sanya's stomach in a hug until she fell asleep.

* * *

**Chapter 4 End**


	5. Chapter 5

**An Expanding Threat**

**Sorry about taking so long for getting this done. It been so close to be completed for a while, yet I didn't finish it.****I've been working on an original story as well, so it has taken a bit of my time as well.**

**For you who have not studied in too much on the characters in the Strike Witches universe, may not know a lot more **  
**characters or remember more than the main characters. They have at least been on screen for a few seconds at least. **  
**You can check them up on: wiki/List_of_Strike_Witches**  
**And I have not used any original characters for this story and I probably wont be doing it. Aside from one-time-use **  
**characters that will appear in a while later in the story.**

**I hope you will enjoy this chapter.**

* * *

**Chapter 5: Familiar Sky**

Eila woke up, still with her arms around Sanya, who now has fallen asleep herself. She looked out and the sun was still high in the sky so it could not have passed too many hours. She kissed Sanya one the forehead. "Wakey wakey, sleepyhead."

The sleepy witch woke up with a yawn and looked at Eila who looked at her with a warm smile. "Good morning, Eila. Have you been sleeping well?"

"It's not morning anymore, dummy." Eila replied another kiss on the cheek. "But yes, I slept really well thanks to you. Your chest is really soft." She continued and poked Sanya's chest a few times. "But are you hungry? I was too tired to eat but you could have eaten if you wanted to. Or maybe you want to eat me." She said with a mischievous smile.

Sanya took one of Eila's fingers and put them in her mouth and bit the finger gently. "You taste good, Eila." She said with a smile and looked at Eila who looked like she was entertained.

After a while they left the room and walked down to the kitchen where Shirley was sitting and reading the newspaper and Lucchini who was hunting a butterfly which flew inside from the open window. "Oh, you finally woke up."

"Yeah, it was nice to take a nap. What did Miyafuji do for lunch?" Eila asked.

"She did the most amazing hot-pot I have ever tasted. You two really need to try it." Shirley said and looked really enthusiastic like she only looks when it has something to do with high speed, which proved she really liked it.

"Then we trust your judgment." Eila said and walked up to the hot-pot that was standing on the stove and it was still pretty warm. She took 2 plates from the shelf and put up food for both her and for Sanya, Sanya took forks, knifes and one glass of milk each, and then walked towards the outdoor hangar to enjoy the sun while eating.

20 minutes and the joy of eating this quality food was not something they could do every day. "Aah, that was so good! Miyafuji sure knows how to make the best food." Eila said and lay down on the ground gazing at the warm sun.

"Yeah, I'm glad that she joined us in the 501st. she is a good cook, healer and a great friend." Sanya replied while she was still eating.

"Eila-san and Sanya-san? Am I interrupting something?" Minna asked when she arrived from behind them.

"Huh, um, no, we were just talking casually. Is something the matter?" Eila asked back, still lying down.

"Yes, we got order from the higher-ups that apparently they were going to organize an assault on the hive deep in Orussia. They asked us to send a few witches to assist the 502nd. And since you already know them and have fought with them I wonder if you want to go."

Eila looked at Sanya with a questioning look. "I haven't seen Nipa and Aleksandra in quite a while. And I miss the others from the 502nd as well. I would like to go."

"I want to meet them too, and if you're going away I want to go with you." Sanya then said. "But commander Minna, what about my other broken striker."

"Don't you worry about it. We have already sent after another striker unit so it will arrive in a few days. So you two will go then."

"Yes please." Both of them said in symphony.

"Thank you, girls. But a plane will fly you to Orussia and the plane that will take you there will arrive tomorrow evening. It's sad that you will leave the unit even if it is just for a while." Minna said with a sad smile.

Eila stood up before Minna. "Hahaha, you really worry too much. We will be fine and you will all be fine as well." Eila laughed loudly and cheered up Minna's sad mood.

Evening fell on the day after and Eila and Sanya left their room with one case each with belongings and clothes. The unit had gathered and there weren't all that many that seemed happy that they were going to leave.

They went by all and received a hug and a good-bye. A few were even crying when they passed by. Last person they passed was Minna who hugged them both at the same time. "Now you'll be fine and take care of yourselves. We will miss both of you and we want you to return home safely."

"We won't put ourselves in too much danger so take it easy." Eila said and hugged her and shed a tear for leaving Minna and for the rest of the unit.

"Aleksandra will meet you at the 502nd base tonight. And Sanya, I have made sure so your new striker will go straight to you in Orussia when it is done. They said it will take about 2 more days for get it done, so be patient. We have your weapons and striker units loaded on the plane already so the plane is ready to go anytime."

"Then I guess we should be going." Eila said and both she and Sanya walked towards the plane. Then they stopped when they stood by the stairs up to the plane.

"Good bye everyone. We can't wait to come back here again. We're going to miss you." Eila said while she and Sanya stood and waved to the unit before their departure and the unit waved back in unison.

Walking on the plane they put their luggage in the back with their weapons and striker units. They could hear the engine start up and they looked out the window to take a final look at the unit which they won't see for a little while.

They were still on the plane after 2 hours and Sanya has fallen asleep in the arms of Eila. Eila was resting her head on Sanya's shoulder and looked out of the window if she could see any landmarks that she knew, which was a little difficult since it was dark outside.

She noticed that Sanya was holding her black pillow. Since they were sitting in 2 seat sofa, she carefully nicked the pillow, put it behind her head, lay down on the back and with Sanya face down over her, which Eila liked as she could see Sanya's sleeping face as she fell asleep herself.

2 more hours later Eila woke up since she felt the plane was going down for a landing. She also noticed that Sanya was now awake and was starring deep into Eila's eyes. "We're here. Too bad since your chest is so soft. I wouldn't mind sleeping on it a little while longer."

Eila giggled a little. "You can use my chest anytime you like. I let you use it tonight if you want to."

When the plane landed, one of the pilots opened the door while Eila and Sanya got their suitcases from the cargo-hold and then left the door after the pilot and out there stood Aleksandra and waited for them.

"Welcome back, Sanya-san and Eila-san. Was the flight here okay?" She asked sincerely.

"Yes, with Sanya by my side, no flight could ever be boring." Eila replied as she hugged Sanya which made Aleksandra laugh a little.

"I see you two are as close as ever. Nipa was supposed to be here to meet you two as well but she fell asleep before that so she is excused." Aleksandra continued with a smile. "We have cleaned your rooms so it is exactly like it was when you two left last time so it's just to carry in your luggage."

"Excuse me, but could we ask to share a room instead. We share one room on the base in Romagna, so if it's possible we want to keep it that way." Eila said and Sanya nodded in agreement.

Aleksandra laughed softly. "Of course, I don't see how it could be a problem at all. I can help you carry your bed then."

"By the way, are we the only ones to come and help the 502nd?" Sanya asked.

"No, the higher ups just let commander Minna choose a few witches from the 501st, and I'm glad she asked you two to come here." Aleksandra replied. "But we got the other chance to choose two or three more from other squads. Since we have heard really impressive things from Dominica S. Gentile and Jane T. Godfrey in the 504th, we asked them to come here and join us. Unfortunately they refused, so we had to look around some more so we choose from the 504th again. So we asked Luciana Mazzei, Martina Crespi and Fernandia Malvessia, and they agreed to come here so they will be arriving tomorrow evening."

"Oh, I heard Shirley and Lucchini met them in Romagna a while after we defeated the hive over Romagna. I heard that they are good people." Eila said.

"Yeah, I've heard the same thing. So we hope that they match our expectations. I also heard they are good at adapt to the situation in a fight, which is great, so it will be another great asset to our squad."

"Where is the hive located exactly?" Sanya then asked.

"It's pretty far away. If I remember correctly I think it was located nearby Kusa. Commander Gundula has all the details of the operation but I think we should get some help from Fuso that meet us in Kusa. The higher-ups will decide who is going to help us so we don't know who it is that will help us yet. Oh and by the way we will travel to the meeting point in 2 weeks, on the 24th of august. And the actual operation will take place the 26th." Aleksandra said.

"Luckily enough we get to celebrate Sanya's birthday so lucky us." Eila happily said as she hugged Sanya and rubbed her cheek against Sanya's.

After they helped the pilots load the striker units and weapons into the hangar with the rest of the 502nd equipment they then went into the barracks and carried Eila's bed into Sanya's room and combined it into a big double bed.

After Aleksandra said good night and left the room they went to bed as well. Since they were excited to meet the other that has not met in a while they had a little problem sleeping. And as Eila promised Sanya she could sleep on Eila's chest on the plane, she invited the white-haired to her bare stomach and bra which was very appreciated by Sanya and they fell asleep at the same time shortly after.

Eila felt that her stomach and chest suddenly felt extra heavy which caused her to wake up. Judging by the light she guessed it was early morning and unfortunately the sun was raising in perfect height to annoy Eila as much as possible. She slowly opened her eyes and saw Sanya's adorable sleeping expression as expected, but over Sanya she saw a pretty short-haired blond haircut and a light-blue sweater that she knew all too well. "Good morning, Nipa. I am sorry to ask this of you the first time we see each other in a while, but could you get off. It's a little heavy with two people on your chest." She squeaked out since she had problems getting some air.

"Aah, sorry." Nipa said, sounding sorry as well. "It's just that I've missed both of you so much and I'm really glad that you are back."

"I've missed all you too, and especially you and Aleksandra." Eila said with a smirk but Nipa could tell she wasn't lying. "It will be fun to meet the other ones in the squad again. Have you been okay since we saw each other?"

"It's been a little bit lonely since you two left for the 501st again but otherwise it has been alright, apart that 2 of my strikers broke again. I also heard that Sanya was badly injured in a battle a little while ago." Nipa looked at Sanya that was comfortably sleeping on Eila's chest with a satisfied expression. "You wouldn't be able to tell if you could see her right now."

"Yeah, but thanks to our medic she made it. And I wouldn't have made it if she passed on." Eila almost whispered the last part, while she caressed Sanya's cheek lightly.

"Don't say that!" Nipa raised her voice which surprised Eila. "I wouldn't be able to take it if you passed on as well. So please don't get injured anymore."

"Well, I was to blame for the reason since she was carrying me for about 30 minutes, she was pretty worn out when we were attacked by that neuroi. It was heartbreaking to not know if she was going to wake up alright. I slept really bad and acted like an ass to everyone else until I knew she woke up and were okay." Eila said and carefully lifted Sanya so she could hug her tightly. "So now I will never let her go again."

Nipa looked at them and felt a little jealous and Eila noticed her look and gave her a warm smile. "Don't look like that, Nipa. Come here."

Lightened up, Nipa grew her ears and tail which wiggled back and forth in delight as she jumped down crawled up next to Eila who took one arm around Nipa as well, who grew a big smile. "No wonder Sanya likes you so much, since you are so warm to cuddle up to."

"Mhmm… Good morning Eila." Sanya said as she woke up face to face with Eila. She then also got sight of Nipa who was lying on the other side of Eila. "And good morning to you as well, Nipa."

Nipa rolled over and was now lying over both Sanya and Eila and was hugging them both tightly. "It's going to be fun, the time you will be here at the base and I wish you wouldn't have to go back to Romagna."

After a little while they left Eila's and Sanya's bedroom and went to the kitchen where Shimohara Sadako stood by the stove, preparing for breakfast and greeted them with a smile and a big hug. "Welcome back you two. Have you been doing well? And are you okay again after the incident, Sanya?" She asked sincerely and looked pretty intrigued.

Sanya and Eila looked at her with a warm smile. "Yes, we are both fine. And I have recovered from the incident thanks from our medic." Sanya replied.

"Thank god that you were fine. We were all worried about how it would turn out when we heard about it from your commander. But please, sit down and the breakfast will be served in just a moment, and the other will probably be here soon as well." Sadako said.

"Oh yeah, were did Nipa go?" Sanya asked and looked around the room.

"Naoe and Waltrud have recently started to sleep in a bit longer and it is a pain to get them out of bed, so since Nipa broke her strikers last week, Commander Gundula and Aleksandra put her in charge in waking them up for this month. I think it is a pretty horrible punishment, so I'm feeling sorry for her, but I'm still glad that I'm not the one that has to do it." Sadako replied and looked sincerely sorry for what Nipa had to go through.

"As expected from those two troublemakers. I bet those two got some kind of punishment as well, as I guess they broke at least a pair of strikers themselves, right?" Eila asked Sadako.

"Hmm, let's see… I think Naoe crashed one time and I can't remember all details about how she broke the other pair. I think she tried to tune it up a bit by herself but it turned out in a disaster, with the strikers catching fire in mid-air during a fight with a neuroi. Luckily she turned out fine. And for Waltrud… I do believe she crashed all of the times although she walked away all those times without a scratch. I think she have broken four striker units since the last time you were here." She replied after thinking a bit. "But their punishment was that they are in charge of keeping the hangar clean and organize for two week for each striker unit they break."

"Pretty harsh punishment although I understand the reasons." Eila said with a small laugh.

After a while everyone had gathered and Eila and Sanya were greeted warmly by all the members from 502nd. And Aleksandra announced that they would have a little flying exercise to see if Eila and Sanya still could adapt to the 502nd fighting style.

When the breakfast was done, they moved to the hangar to start with the exercise right away. "Sanya, since one of your strikers are destroyed, we have a spare pair of strikers you can use until your new strikers arrive tomorrow. We recently got these since Nipa, Waltrud and Naoe keeps destroying their strikers in one way or another. But since they have whole strikers for now, they won't need those." Aleksandra said with a sigh and looked at the three troublemakers.

"I can try them and see if I can use it efficiently. If it's just for today there should be no problem." Sanya said with a smile.

Soon enough the squad was fully equipped with their strikers and armaments. Eila held hands with Sanya as she used a new pair of strikers for her first flight since she was injured and suffered from magic exhaustion. So to make sure it would be no problem if she flew in all seriousness, they started with floating on ground level at first.

After slowly flying on ground level Sanya had some problems and started to feel a little exhausted. Apparently the battle when her shield shattered from magic exhaustion caused her magic to regenerate really slowly.

Gundula came up beside Sanya who landed slowly on the ground. "I see the effects of the magic exhaustion still stands. Please try to fly as much as you can today. If you try to deplete your magic as much as possible that it will replenish faster. Although this isn't definitive it's worth a shot." She said sincerely. "Eila, you will do this with us as usual with the rest of the group."

Sanya looked down into the ground in disappointment. "Don't be so down. You're gonna make me just as sad. But when the exercise is done, I will be with you all day and probably Nipa too. But just as commander Gundula said, you probably just need to fly more. Just wait till I'm done with this exercise and I'm joining you afterwards." Eila said and gave Sanya a kiss on the lips and caressed her cheek lightly. She then flew away to the others as Sanya looked after Eila, before flying along the ground as good as she could for now.

As Eila catched up to the others Gundula took the lead in explaining the exercise. "Eila, since the last time you fought alongside us, we have changed into another more aggressive approach. We have changed so that we have a charge-in-team consisting of Waltrud and Naoe. Their task is to smash into the target and make as much initial damage as possible."

"Well, no wonder their strikers break more now than before." Eila though to herself while looking at both Waltrud and Naoe who looked happy and brimming with confidence despite their constant loss of strikers.

Georgette Lemare passively flew in loops and waited for Gundula's explanation for Eila to end. Edytha Roβmann was waiting as well with her arms crossed.

"Afterward when they have its attention and turned around, as they do most of the time, the rest of us will do a final strike coming from the same direction Waltrud and Naoe came from to surprise it. This tactic has worked on all single target neuroi we have encountered so far. We still improvise when we met a target with drones."

"Right, I think I get it. Then let's get started." Eila said looking really pumped up and the rest of the unit looked ready to go and soon enough they boomed away to a more appropriate location.

1 and a half hour later they returned to the base after the exercise. "Waltrud, how do you even manage to almost crash at an easy exercise as this? If you do that I will make you keep the hangar clean and organized for 2 months." Gundula complained slightly irritated at Waltrud's recklessness.

"Chill off a bit, will you? I prevented it in the last second, did I not? Yell at Georgette and Sadako for not being very perceptive when I and Naoe passed through the target on our way back at it. It could have ended with all 4 of us getting injured." Waltrud said in defense.

"Don't put this on them. Since you two keep improvising and divert from the plan doing what the hell you want, Georgette and Sadako stick to it in harmony. I let you off the hook for this once but you better stick to the plan next time." She sighted.

"On another note, today is Friday so can I tempt you with a drink later tonight, perhaps." Waltrud asked with a smirk.

"No thank you. Last time you offered me a drink you put a sleeping pill in my drink when I didn't look. It wouldn't have ended good for neither for us if Nipa didn't say anything. I'm not falling for the same trick twice. She replied with a stiff expression on her face."

"Waltrud closed in a little sneakily and caressed her butt jokingly, much to Gulunda's surprise. "H- Hey, what are you doing, idiot? What did you do that for?" Gundula asked as she blushed and had an embarrassed look on her face which amused Waltrud.

"Come on, I know you like it. One or maybe two drinks and it will feel better. I'll be gentle. Since we don't have anything special to do tomorrow anyway, we can keep going all night" Waltrud said in a smug voice.

"I already said no. Accept it already. Ask Edytha instead. She probably will join you for a drink but I won't do it. Besides tonight we will have a party for that Eila, Sanya, Martina, Fernandia and Luciana, so you better behave to be a good role model. And on a side note, if you start to hit on any of them, expect punishment for the rest of the time as you are working as a witch." Gundula replied in a scary tone which made even Waltrud shudder before Gundula flew up beside Eila who was flying in the front with Nipa.

"I'm really impressed with how good you adapted into our tactic. I'm not denying your skills as a witch but I guess your ability to predict the future came in handy. It became useful when Waltrud and Naoe came back for the clash with the target. Especially today when they improvised so no one would know what they were doing." She said with a smile.

"Yeah, I totally wasn't prepared that they would come back in that situation from that angle. By the way, do we still follow the rule on being free for Saturday and Sunday?" Eila asked.

"Yes, we do but I think we should get Sanya to train with the strikers. She needs to come in form to reinforce the squad. Otherwise… she will not be able to help at all." Gundula replied and looked quite serious but she grew a warm smile. "But it is Sanya we are talking about, so I'm certain that her magic will replenish faster if we keep it up as we doing now with her training."

Eila nodded faintly and a short while later they arrived at the base again. She could see a figure against the wall to the hangar. Going down before the others she landed next to the figure, which obviously was Sanya who was sleeping, leaning against the wall with the strikers still attached to her legs.

Naoe giggled a little. "Is that cute, or what?" She said and everyone smiled as they looked at the tired junior.

"So she used up most of her magic until she fell asleep, huh? We can let her sleep a bit before letting her take up the training." Gundula then said and patted her on the head before all of them flew in to the hangar and disengaged from their equipment.

Eila and Nipa went to sit with Sanya while the rest went back to the barracks. Aleksandra stopped for a bit and then turned back to Eila, Nipa and Sanya.

"Eila, I don't know if Gundula told you but tonight we will celebrate you, Sanya and the three other witches from Romagna for coming here to help out. The clock is a little past two and the others will arrive at 7 so we will start around 8 if everything goes as planned, so see if you can get Sanya to finish her training by then." She said with a smile as she looked at Sanya.

"Really? That sounds like fun." Eila replied with a smile. "I'm sure Sanya will be delighted by that as well. But, yes, I will see so the training will be done by then."

"Sadako will start making food soon so we can eat a little to build up some strength again. I think Sanya will need it the most of us. But we'll see you at lunch then." Aleksandra said gently and nodded before head of against the barracks again.

"Nipa, help me get the strikers from her legs. I can't believe that it can be comfortable to sleep like this." Eila said and together they removed the strikers from Sanya's legs and put them against the wall and carrying Sanya like a princess they moved to a sunny hill behind the hangar.

"Mmhm… Eila?" Sanya said quietly as Eila was carrying her. "What are you doing?"

"You fell asleep by the hangar with your strikers still attached to your legs. I can't imagine it to be comfortable. Are you still tired?" Eila asked gently.

"A little."

"Good, since we were on our way to the hill behind the hangar for the sunny spot that we both like. I'll let you sleep on my chest."

"That sounds nice." Sanya said with a smile as they reached the hill.

Eila put Sanya down before she herself lay down on the grass and Sanya crawled up on top of her and her head landed on Eila's chest, and with a smile she fell asleep in seconds. Nipa lay down beside them as well.

"She must be really tired to fall asleep so quickly. I guess she depleted a lot of magic when we were doing our exercise." Nipa said with a smile looking at Sanya's sleeping face.

"Yeah, that's my little sweetie, alright." Eila replied with a giggle. "Well, we can take a little rest as well." She continued and closed her eyes and put a hand on Sanya's head and slowly fell into a slumber as well as Nipa.

A few hours later when Eila and Sanya were done with the training and got of the bath, they heard a plane coming in from above. "I guess that's the last of the reinforcements." Eila said as they got dressed. "Let's go out and meet them."

As they got out the plane had just stopped and the cargo hold on the plane opened and 3 witches from the age of 16-18 walked out and started to shudder a bit. "This sure is a different environment from Romagna. Just a little too dry air and a little colder as well." Fernandia said and walked up to Aleksandra who was waiting a short distance from the plane.

"Good evening and welcome to Orussia, I guess I can say. I am Aleksandra Pokryshkin, Commanding Officer here." She said with a smile and reached out her hand at Fernandia.

"Thank you very much, I'm Fernandia Malvezzi. These are Luciana Mazzei and Martina Crespi." She said with a smile as well and pointed at the other two behind who nodded gracefully.

Aleksandra greeted them as well and introduced Eila and Sanya that just left the barracks, Georgette and Nipa as well. Fernandia went up to close to Nipa. "Hmm, so you are the rumored Jinxed Katajainen." She said with a teasing smile and saw Nipa blushing up from embarrassment from knowing how well that cursed name has been spread.

"Fernandia, can't you just greet them normally?" Luciana inquired and Martina nodded in agreement. "I don't think she likes being greeted like that. It's not like you make up a good picture of yourself like that."

"Well… I'm sorry… I guess they are right that I shouldn't up start a conversation like that. Anyways, nice to meet you." She said and held out her hand for a handshake which Nipa responded to.

The same thing with Georgette. When she went up to Sanya and Eila she held out her hand as well and Sanya took her hand. "So you're Sanya. I heard what happened a few days ago. I'm glad that you are okay, and I find it fascinating that you are already in fighting condition and ready to fight. I'm really impressed." She praised Sanya, who blushed at those words.

She then went to Eila. "Nice to meet you to. So you two are the ones they sent from the 501st. I hope we will get along." Fernandia said and Eila nodded with a smile.

From the barracks door Waltrud stood and felt her mouth water up upon looking at the newcomers. "New.. meat… from… the mediterrean coast." She hissed out as her predator-instincts took over. Unfortunately for her Gundula passed by and saw Waltrud get ready for an attack.

She grabbed hold of Waltrud's jacket and dragged Waltrud with her. "I guess I should clarify what I stated earlier. Watch, not touch. I guess you can ogle as much as you want later at the dinner and after but you are no allowed to touch them. I feel sorry for them to have you at the base. Or am I really at fault here? Am I that bad of commanding officer to not have corrected your ways for those years I have been working here?" She asked herself.

"No no no, you're a great commanding officer, the problem lies with me, so no sweat. So, now please can I go and ogle, not touch as much as I want now?" She asked Gundula with a pleading voice and putting her hands together to look like she was meaning it.

"No, you're going to help me and Sadako in the kitchen so we can keep our eyes on you."

"Tch, damn it." Waltrud said quietly as she was dragged by Gundula in to the kitchen where Sadako were cutting up tomatoes for the big pot that were boiling.

The other showed the Romagnans around the base to feel a little at home. Due to some problems with place Nipa and Naoe now share room with Eila and Sanya, who now share one bed. Although not complaining being so close during the night, the real problem was that they had very little space each and the room felt smaller when they also dragged Naoe's bed while Nipa could use Eila's.

As the clock turned past 8 they were all in the dining room around the table that was now filled with dishes and drinks for everyone. And as everyone had one glass each Gundula raised her over everyone else's. "Today, I welcome all new members of the 502nd squad, even though it is only temporary, but I'm sure we can make this work. In two weeks we will travel to the town of Kusa where we meet the rest of the fuso witches that we will work with. From there we will take on the hive that stretches from Zlatoust to Miass to stop it from getting any further." She said until she got a elbow in her stomach by Aleksandra who wanted her to continue with the speak and not to continue with the plan. "Sorry to forget my place. But not for that now, but I want you all to raise a glass for Sanya Litvyak, Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen, Luciana Mazzei, Fernandia Malvezzi and Martina Crespi!"

"Cheers!" Everyone said in unity and heightened their glass in celebration.

Sanya was first to dig in to the food since she was starving due to the training earlier. Shortly after everyone did the same and as Martina and Fernandia focused on the Romagnan food Sadako made, while Luciana did try a lot of the Fuso and Orussian food that was also presented. She also felt like he was also under direct watch by Waltrud who waved a little each time Luciana looked at her direction.

After the food there was some dancing which everyone felt was necessary for spice it up. Aleksandra went to get some LP discs while Edytha got the gramophone. As everything was set, everybody went up to the dance floor and asked each other for a dance. First dance started with Sanya with Fernandia, Eila with Nipa, Edytha with Martina, Gundula with Luciana (much to Waltrud's dismay), Naoe with Sadako and Georgette with Waltrud to a quick jazz which set the room in full swing. To the second dance everyone changed partner to a ballad to which Waltrud got to dance with Luciana, if she kept her hands under control.

Sanya took a place at the piano they also had at the living room which they moved in later where they had a little more room to dance in after they moved some of the furniture. Most of them just sat down and listened while she played beautiful songs that her father had learned her.

The dance party kept on going for an hour or two until they ran out of music to play and as many of them had fallen asleep by dancing too much. Sanya and Georgette was sleeping on the floor and Naoe fell asleep sitting in a chair. Martina had also fallen asleep although against the wall. Waltrud was still full awake, probably due to the fair amount of alcohol when has taken in.

Everyone else was tired though and decided that it would be a good time to go bed. Waltrud dragged a tired and slightly drunk Edytha with her, Nipa helped Naoe, Sadako helped Georgette and Luciana helped with carrying Martina as well as act as a stabilizer for Fernandia who was a bit unstable after drinking a few alcoholic sips.

Eila carried Sanya to their room and put her down on the bed, undressed her and tucked her in with the cover and she went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. As she came back to the room after two minutes, Nipa and Naoe who entered the room after Eila left two minutes ago, had now already fallen asleep with faint snoring noises from both of them. With a short giggle she tucked them both in as well and then cuddled up close to Sanya. And as she felt how tired she was, she fell asleep in a flash as well.

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**Chapter 5 End**


	6. Chapter 6

**An Expanding threat**

**3 month since last chapter? Damn I'm slow at updating my fanfics.**

**Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this chapter.**

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**Chapter 6: Move out**

One week later the training was in full go. It was now the 16th of August and it was only 2 days left until Sanya's birthday. Sanya had now made great progress to replenish a big part of her magic. She would still get incredibly tired after a while of difficult maneuvers.

The training session for today was just to practice those difficult maneuvers. Sanya was proving to get most of her reflexes back as well which was pleasing to see. The witches from Romagna have also, as in the rumors, proven to be good at adapting to the situation. The group only had some few flaws, counting in that Waltrud and Naoe did still improvise whenever they got the chance, which have earned them a lot of punishments aside from cleaning and keeping the hangars organized. Eila, thanks to the predicting magic followed the plan accordingly. Georgette only had some problems with the timing.

"Good work today again. Georgette, train a little more on the timing since there are some small issues with that which you have to work on. Waltrud, you can help her." Gundula said.

"Does that mean I..." Waltrud replied in excited tone before she got cut off.

"No, you still have to finish the laundry, wash everything from breakfast, and tidy up in the kitchen. After that you can help her. And don't you even dare to teach her your and Naoe's improvising ridiculousness." Gundula said to a disappointed Waltrud who now sulked away to the kitchen. "And Sanya, you are doing great with your training to get you magic back, and your reflexes have improved as well. Really good job with that."

But overall a good exercise. So keep this up." Gundula finished and looked proud over the squad."

"Sanya, are you too tired to continue with your training." Eila asked and Sanya nodded in confirmation.

"Then why don't we ask Nipa and see if she wants to play some cards with us. We haven't played it since we came here. We can ask and see if Naoe want to join as well. How about that?" Eila asked again.

"That sounds good." Sanya replied in a quiet tone.

By lunchtime, Gundula entered the kitchen when everybody was eating. "Everyone, I received new information from headquarters about the operation. Apparently the weapon, or means of attack, we will use is a new and incredibly expensive explosive clay, but it is very powerful. It has been proven that a small amount of this clay could make a large type neuroi become a forgotten memory. Although this is nice and all, the problem is that we, the 502nd JFW, will have to place it on the core, which means we have to be as close as to be able to touch the core of the hive."

Fernandia held her hand up. "Stop, stop a minute. Why did they choose us to place the clay and why can't they come up with a way to shoot it? And do we have anything else that will support us aside from the witches from Fuso you talked about last week?"

Gundula nodded in her direction. "Good question, Fernandia. We will have a lot of ground cannons that consists of mostly Karlslands 88mm anti-air cannons, and tanks of the IS type will be the primary ones. We also got hold of 13 Orussian ISU-122 and 3 SU-14 self-propelled guns as well. These squadrons will shoot a long-range heavy barrage to lessen the Neuroi count even if just a little. And as for shooting the clay is one thing that they have tried to accomplish in an effective way. However, the clay has to be placed out in certain points for it to be fully effective against the core of a hive. As guns and cannons are not fully reliable in accuracy at those distances it could screw thing up quite bad and there is not too much of the clay as well so we can't just ask for more if we run out. And for the reason they choose us is because we live rather close to the hive as well as they seem to have faith in us since this mission is much more important than any other mission we have been tasked with before."

"Last week I told you about the other witches from Fuso that will join us in this operation we have now changed slightly. They are now going to exchange some of the Fuso witches to some other Orussian witches that are stationed closer to the Pacific ocean. And this is where they comes in to the picture. From the information we have, they will be about 30 of them all in all, so we will have plenty of protection but even so we will need to be on top alert. They are there to protect us while we are to place the clay. But this will be a one chance only so there will be no chance for screw ups and for no changes in plans. And Waltrud and Naoe, when we practice and faces single or a few Neuroi like the ones we meet here, we still make it out somehow okay. But this time you will face serious punishment by the higher-ups if you act on your own accord." Gundula said and looked at Waltrud and Naoe and they could tell from this look that this was truly serious.

"This is a fight that will hopefully be short and effective but I can't assure that we all may return alive. But I have faith in all of you, and that this operation will go well without fail and we will return here back in this base alive. And after lunch we will continue with the exercise as we still have some rough parts to polish before we are ready for the real thing, and I expect that you two will follow the plan accordingly." She finished and looked at Waltrud and Naoe during the very last part of the speech, to which they nodded.

The atmosphere during lunch fell and the happy discussion died down due to the mission talk. After the quiet lunch that continued, they all got ready for another sortie and stood fully geared up outside of the hangar with Aleksandra in the front of the others. "We will repeat the exercise that we have been through this past week and hope to have it fully functional by next week. I want you all to focus so we can get everything right at least once before we are done for today so we have a set example to follow. Let's fly!" Aleksandra said and they all took off to the usual exercise arena where everything were set up and ready to use and they stayed there until evening.

It was the same with the day after, and they practiced all the day through as well and came home late at evening.

It was now a beautiful warm and sunny morning on the 18th of August, which means it is Sanya's birthday. (Yoshika's too, if they were at the 501st base in Romagna.) Eila was set on waking up a little earlier than Sanya, and she did, and she can't remember if Sanya has ever woken up before Eila so she wouldn't expect things to be any different today. She sneakily woke up Naoe and Nipa quietly who were sleeping in the same room. They woke up and with light steppes the walked out of the room and closed the door. Apparently the others had already woken up a little before them but they were in the kitchen preparing the cake and Waltrud and Luciana were making the table ready. Gundula, Edytha, Martina and Fernandia were hanging up pretty decorations in the roof and some on the table.

"I thought you were going to be up a little sooner today but you slept in a bit I see. We have been up for about 30 minutes at least." Aleksandra said with a gentle smile as always.

As far as Eila can remember she had only seen Aleksandra been really, really angry two times. One time at Waltrud and Naoe as for an improvised maneuver that led to a crash between Aleksandra, Sadako, Waltrud and Edytha during an encounter with a few neuroi, and all their strikers ended up broken. Although Naoe weren't in the crash she was just as much in the wrong as Waltrud and she also broke her pair at the end of the battle. They got harsh punishments for a month since Aleksandra had to fix all their strikers which she didn't find all too amusing. The other time was during Nipa's punishment where she had to clean the hangar, and she somehow managed to tip over an iron beam which broke some of their equipment and went through a thin part of their wall in the hangar as well as it tipped over a barrel of oil that spilled all over the floor. It took both money and time to fix it and Nipa got even further punishment for it.

"Yeah, I planned to be up a little earlier but I just didn't wake up in time. Sanya didn't wake up at least. So how long until we are done here?" Eila asked.

"Hmm… I wouldn't think it would be that much longer. Sadako, how long until the cake is done?" She asked Sadako who was in charge of making the cake with the help of Georgette and Naoe although Naoe was so tired she was sitting on a chair with her head slammed onto the desk.

"Umm… I'm afraid that it will take another half an hour. We just finished it but we have to let it stand for a little while too." Sadako replied.

"Well, then we hope she can sleep a while more before we wake her up or if she wake up by herself. We can talk a bit before we wake her up but let's wait until 8. It's just 20 minutes until then so let's prepare as much as we can until then." Aleksandra said and both she and Eila went to help out with as much as they could until 8.

As the clock turned 8 Eila went to the room Sanya were sleeping in and slowly opened the door. As expected Sanya was still sleeping and she hasn't moved a bit in the time Eila and the other woke up so she still were lying curled up and Eila couldn't resist looking at her for a while until she remembered that the others were waiting or else she would like to look for a while longer.

She poked Sanya's cheek lightly and Sanya made some cute grunting noises since she apparently wanted to sleep some more. Eila nimbly removed the cover and she started to tickle Sanya and since Sanya was sensitive to that she started to laugh hysterically and she slowly opened her eyes, and it was then Eila stopped tickle her.

"Happy birthday Sanya." Eila said and threw herself over Sanya and hugged her. As Sanya was taken by surprise by her actions, but when Eila landed upon her with a thud, she broke a smile and hugged Eila back. "You want to grab something nice to eat?" Eila asked cheerfully.

Sanya nodded with a smile and followed Eila out of the room while holding her hand, they entered the nicely decorated kitchen which supposedly which now was empty much to both Eila's and Sanya's surprise. After standing there for a few seconds, everyone jumped out behind walls and sofas and the likes, which surprised the two witches.

"Happy 15th Birthday Sanya!" The yelled out in unison and Eila joined in as much as she managed in that short time. They all went up to Sanya as gave her a hug and ruffled her hair. After all that was over and they were all seated, Sadako brought the cake and put it in front of Sanya and to her delight, it was a strawberry cake, which Sanya loved and there were 15 small candles stuck in the cake, formed like a heart.

The cake went around the table and when they all got their piece they gave a cheer for Sanya again with their glasses and started to eat and talk a lot for a while until the cake were gone and their glasses were empty. Sadako, Eila and Luciana cleaned the table and they were done pretty fast with 3 people helping out.

"Unfortunately, we haven't gotten any presents due to our training but we can make up for that after the mission." Gundula said with a kind of sad smile but Sanya replied with a laugh.

"You don't really need to buy me anything. I am just more than happy enough now that you all congratulated me like this and that means more than anything for me. So you don't need to do that." Sanya replied.

"No, that won't do." Aleksandra cut in with a strong voice to everybody's surprise. "We have always done it that way to give everybody a present, and we won't stop with that now. So after the fight we will buy you something whether you like it or not." She said and gave Sanya an equal smile to her laugh.

Eila put a hand on Sanya's shoulder. "So there you have it. You will get one from me as well so it will be great when we get back." She said with a beaming smile as well.

Sanya looked down at her knees since everyone looked at her and she was really embarrassed. Then Aleksandra clapped her hands and got everyone's attention. "So, now, to not make Sanya any more uncomfortable how about we make a proper breakfast now and then do some fun outdoors activities since this is such nice weather today? Is that okay with everyone?" She asked and looked around to see if it were any objections.

Everybody shook their heads and in a short while there was a nice and filling breakfast prepared on the table, and when everybody has been seated the food was quickly disappearing. After a good 20 minutes, all of the breakfast was gone, and there was a table with witches who looked pleased by filling their stomachs.

The day continued with some volleyball and other sports and games. And by the evening the unit was completely exhausted when they were resting in the living room and just took a breather. Sanya was sitting in the lap of Eila and Sanya has almost fallen asleep since she has been the one who was most active during the day and the one who had most fun as well, and when Eila thought back at the smiles and laughs that Sanya had today she felt her whole body warm up since she don't think she could remember the last time she saw Sanya having that much fun. And she couldn't be happier than to see Sanya be that happy.

"I think we should make some dinner since I think some of us want to go to bed since some of us are rather sleepy from what I can see." Aleksandra said as she was sitting very lazily in the sofa as she was apparently very tired as well.

"Please! I am hungry but I don't have the strength to eat. Someone, please feed me and then carry me to the bed." Naoe said as she was lying flat one the floor, and she hadn't been moving an inch for the last 10 minutes.

"Sadako, do you have any strength left to make some dinner? I can help and perhaps someone else can help you too if that would be necessary." Aleksandra asked Sadako over the room as she was resting her head at Georgette's lap as Georgette has already fallen asleep.

"She yawned a little before answering. "I guess I can see if I manage, and I would appreciate your help." She replied and got up although a little reluctant to leaving Georgette's warm and comfortable lap.

After 20 minutes the dinner was served and the lot walked or crawled their way to the dinner table. Slowly but steadily they cleaned the table of food and after another short while they were done, which then followed by cleaning the table from dishes and the like.

And as the most of the squad went to bed after dinner a few stayed up for another while, like Waltrud that managed to get Luciana stay up a bit after Gundula went to bed to not keep any watch over what she might do.

For the next following days the training continued and they tried to pick up the pace a bit and since they managed to complete their formation during day 1 after Sanya's birthday they could train on follow each other's movements. Thus training as wingman begun shifting randomly between the witches and Waltrud showed exceptional teamwork together with Luciana which surprised mostly everyone, mostly Gundula and Aleksandra. Eila and Sanya were of course in perfect synch and Eila performed well with everyone due to her foresight magic. Sanya could follow Martina pretty well and Fernandia to an extent but the others were a little harder, especially Naoe who made a lot of difficult maneuvers that Sanya had problems to foresee. She also flew well together with most of the 502nd and there she flew best with Nipa.

The training continued for the remaining 2 days and proved to improve their teamwork very well and their trusts to each other were also raised to a new level.

The witches in the unit's sleep from the 21st to the 22nd of august were a rather nice one since they trained exceptionally hard to earn them a much better sleep at night which proved to be useful and it worked well as planned.

The morning on the 22nd Gundula walked in on each unit's member's rooms and were hitting two pan-lids together which made for a perfect, foolproof and annoying wake-up call at 8 AM that didn't fail to wake up everyone. The unit gathered together in the dining hall for a filling breakfast that would make for a long travel. After the meal they packed what they could in their backpacks that they would be carrying for their stay in a rather remote town, which took about half an hour to get down for everyone.

9.15 They had all gathered and stood fully equipped with striker units, weapons, backpacks and food rations outside the hangar around a table with a map over Russia.

"So, now we will make a flight from Petersburg which is here and our destination is over here, in the town of Kusa. I suspect that the other witches and officers are already there, so I hope we will be given a warm welcome. The flight will be long and of I have calculated this right we will be there at late evening, with a few breaks. Although, the possibility is rather high that we will meet a few neuroi since we are going closer to the hive, but we can only hope we get to Kusa safely and most hopefully without any injuries. But if we run into one I am to divide you all into different groups on two and two to further improve on teamwork. So stand together as I call your name. Waltrud and Luciana, Naoe and Edytha, Sanya and Martina, Eila and Georgette, Nikka and Fernandia and then finally Sadako and Aleksandra." And after she called together the team they stood by their teammate and they were fully ready to take off.

"Yesterday you trained together with each other and I put you together to make up for each other's weaknesses and put you with someone you don't usually fly together with. Remember what and how you did during the last days and this will probably go just fine. Don't rely on that someone will come to help and stall if a neuroi appear. Don't take what I say that we won't come and help if you encounter one, but we will cover a wide field of flight to clean the way of any neuroi we might encounter. We will cover a line of 10 miles and we will fly with a 2 mile spread between each group. Sanya and Martina will take the place in the middle due to Sanya's magic to sense neuroi if the get close. Any objections?" Gundula then asked and looked around but it looked like everyone got the orders and no objections seemed to popup.

"Good, then Sanya and Martina take the middle, Eila and Georgette take the left of them and Nikka and Fernandia take the right side. On the far right Naoe and Edytha will fly and to the far left I want Waltrud and Luciana. I will fly behind a short while behind Sanya and Martina. Now let fly!" She then said and all of them started to fly away and they took off took each designated position.

After a while of flight, all the groups have started their own conversations and laughed away. Waltrud and Luciana seemed to have the most connection as they constantly kept their conversation going. After 3 hours of flight they decided to take their first time to eat during their journey. And after filling up a bit and after 20 minutes Sanya looked at the direction they were going for.

"Sanya, do you sense anything? Is it a neuroi?" Gundula asked and looked with a questioning expression at Sanya.

"I feel three neuroi's a few miles in front of us and they are keeping a decent speed at the moment but they are slowly coming closer. I would guess that we will meet them in 30 minutes if we stay here." She replied.

"Okay, everyone. Finish what you are eating and get ready we will stay here for a short while more to rest up but when they are about 10 minutes from here we will engage them as we have practiced." Aleksandra said and quickly finished the bread she was eating and the others followed suit. "Sanya, can you please keep track on them for a while and notice us when they are rather close?" She then asked Sanya and Sanya nodded.

About 15 minutes passed and then Sanya stood up as well as the unit that were now fully packed and ready go. "Now they should be 10 minutes from here. I haven't sensed any abnormalities yet and I hope we won't meet any." Sanya said to the rest of the witches.

"Let's move out, gang!" Alexandra shouted and they took off to the sky in their trained formation.

As soon as they moved forward Sanya sensed some new movements from the neuroi's in front of them. "They are accelerating quickly. They… have… They've more than tripled their speed. We will meet them in about 2 minutes. I think they transformed as well."

"What the hell? Everyone, be ready with your shields, and prepare to engage in formation. Naoe and Waltrud, take the front and I won't accept any improvised maneuvers this time." Alexandra ordered and Naoe and Waltrud did as they were told.

Shortly after, 3 small dots appeared in the sky in front of them and they came against them in really high speed but their size didn't really change much as they closed in and soon they saw that all the three neuroi had the same form. Their shape was that of a pole or cylinder about 1 meter wide and roughly 10 meters long and sharp in the front which could impale anyone it would also got some sort of wing on each side which made it stretch to about 5 meters wide. It even got a horizontal and vertical stabilizer and what looked like a jet engine. And it went by them in a flash and then went to turn around for another run.

"Aleksandra? Don't they look awfully much like V-1 missiles?" Gundula asked.

"Now that you say it, I think you're right. Although they may be a bit longer but yeah, they strongly resemble V-1s."

"How are we supposed to hit them if they are this fast and thin?" Luciana asked as she shot after them as good as she could as they passed by.

"What else! We just have to chase after them and destroy them." Fernandia said as everyone followed her lead.

"Sanya, Nipa and Aleksandra, follow me!" Eila said and they followed after her. "I have a plan. But I need Sanya's Fliegerhammer and some extra firepower."

"What… is it?" Nipa asked as she tried to dodge incoming beams as well as shielding some of them.

"If I concentrate a little harder I can increase my foresight magic about 2 seconds longer than I usually do. And if I do that I can predict where to shoot them, but since they are faster than usual I can't chase them like I usually do. But if I predict where they will be a few seconds earlier and prepare where it will be when we shoot it, so if we do it with the Fliegerhammer we can deal a major blow to it, and if it slows down of the hit we can take it down with our weapons as well. We will just need some protection if you will be so nice and provide some."

"Of course! But this sound good. Then we trust your directives. Just tell us when to do our part." Aleksandra said as watched out for the neuroi.

Eila stayed just behind Sanya to direct her to the neuroi when it would appear. She was now concentrating for one of the neuroi to come into range while Aleksandra and Nipa were protecting them from incoming beams.

"Get ready, you two, one of them is incoming! Sanya, a little more to the left, up a tiny bit. 3, 2, 1, fire!" Eila screamed and Sanya's Fliegerhammer spitted out 4 rockets, and Eila helped tilting the Fliegerhammer so all of the 4 rockets would hit even while the target moved.

With some sort of painful scream the Neuroi slowed down as the rockets seemed to hit spot on. Eila, Aleksandra and Nipa followed suit after it and managed to catch up to it, if even just barely. With a roar, it started spitting out beams left and right to get rid of it pursuers. Eila dodged them with ease, while Aleksandra somewhat managed to avoid using her shield while Nipa apparently were the target and got the most after her.

They got around a bit to get some free time to spray it with bullets as they got to make it into a dogfight which made it easier for them. It went around going for a stationary target and went for Sanya, who were waiting with a smug smile on her face and pointed her Fliegerhammer to the incoming neuroi. She then released a short barrage of 3 rockets which once again made the neuroi cry out in pain and cancel its current trajectory and then the others got around it and after Sanya's third rocket they found the core. Eila closed in until she was at point blank range and a few bullets later the core shattered and one of the neuroi's were down.

"The core is behind a thick layer in the front of their bodies." Aleksandra said in the com-link so the others wouldn't have as much of a problem finding it.

"I'm almost out of bullets. Could anyone spare me some ammo?" Waltrud then said in the com-link after Aleksandra was finished with her information.

"Just how many bullets have you wasted? You got a MG42 for crying out loud. Have you hit anything at all?" Aleksandra asked and was genuinely surprised although slightly irritated as well for Waltrud's reckless way to spend bullets.

"Ehh, well, a few, but I did actually hit them as well, although they regenerated them almost directly after I hit them with a bullet." Waltrud said with a chuckle even now in the situation they were in.

Aleksandra sighed high enough so everyone could hear her over the com-link. "Fine, I lend you my side-arm then, and for god's sake, do not lose it. I want it back afterward. And in one piece as well." Aleksandra said and threw Waltrud her Nagant M1895 revolver as well as a couple of additional cartridges.

"I will not lose or get it destroyed, I can promise you that. Do you have any faith in me at all?" Waltrud replied and gave Aleksandra a firm smile, although Aleksandra didn't look as optimistic.

"I'm not so sure about it myself if I have any." She said quietly and went after Sanya, Eila and Nipa to the next target that Fernandia, Martina, Naoe and Edytha were after.

Trying the same setup as last time, Eila floated behind Sanya, while Nipa and Aleksandra protected their back. "Edytha and Naoe, cover out position on our left and right side. Fernandia and Martina, try to chase it over to over here if that is possible."

"That's easier said than done. But we will try our best. Let's go Martina. I want to get rid of this son of a bitch as soon as possible." Fernandia said and took off and tried to increase her speed as much as she could. After a good amount of dogfighting and struggle and a good amount of shielding incoming beams as well, they managed to get the neuroi on the right course against them.

The neuroi went first against Sanya and Eila who floated in wait for it. But with a quick maneuver it discarded its flight against the 2 witches and went for Edytha who were totally unprepared for its quick approach. "Edytha, dodge to the right and we'll see if we can do something! Try to get behind it after that!" Eila shouted at Edytha who tried to outmaneuver it, although a beam barely hit her arm and the neuroi itself scratched against her striker, but she managed to get away without any major damage.

"Edytha, are you alright?" Aleksandra yelled in fear of Edytha being so close to being pierced.

"I'm fine, my arm was hit but I can manage for now, I just want to finish this before I worry about it some more." She replied and went for a dogfight with the neuroi and kept up rather well with it even though it held an advantage due to its ridiculous speed.

"Fernandia, keep up with Edytha and chase it from behind. Nipa, you go with Martina and try to counter it from the opposite direction. Naoe, go around from the opposite direction to Eila and Sanya to lure it in here." Aleksandra ordered and the team scattered away, and she looked at the neuroi that Waltrud, Gundula and Luciana were fighting against and it looked like they got quite nice hits on it as the neuroi looked rather wounded.

The pincer attacked worked quite right on spot as it moved almost exactly as they predicted even though they were against a neuroi that went fire happy with its beams that went flying everywhere around it. Naoe were one of the key points to make it turn into the sights of Sanya's Fliegerhammer that was ready to be fired. The shots from Martina and Nipa's direction managed to peel of enough armor of the neuroi to make the core nearly visible. With the order to fire from Eila, Sanya freed 3 rockets at the neuroi and Aleksandra and Eila started shooting at the neuroi as well since it didn't needed much more to destroy it. With bullets flying at the hull of the neuroi more armor were peeled of and as soon as the rockets hit, neuroi pieces flew in all direction and they saw the neuroi turning white and then exploded to a firework of white crystals.

They made a quick dash to the final neuroi that was hunted by Waltrud who made a gracious loop and managed to perfect a diving maneuver that made her come out on top of the neuroi and with a single shot from the revolver she hit the core with unmatched accuracy, and made that neuroi shatter into a nice white explosion.

The unit gathered on the ground below the battlefield. "Damn, I don't think we have ever fought against neuroi who has been this fast before." Fernandia said as she lay down on the grass and took a long breather as well as taking a sip out of her water bottle.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. These one were quite annoying. I hope we won't meet more of them there or at least on the way to Kusa." Gundula said as she took a seat on a rock. "By the way, Waltrud, why can't you do these perfectly executed maneuvers on our training sessions and perhaps your destroyed striker count might decrease as well. And as for your sharpshooting skills with a revolver is great but you never show these talents on our sessions as well. Why?"

"The maneuvers are a pain to go through and I prefer to use them in pressed situations when I really need them and this was one of these situations. As for the shooting thing, I had to do it since I was rather careless with the MG42 and wasted all my ammo that resulted in nearly nothing. And when I got the revolver from Aleksandra and only like 15 rounds I had to use them carefully. It's much easier with the MG42 since then you don't have to focus as much as you need to otherwise."

Gundula and Aleksandra sighed. "For Christ sake Waltrud. Can't you take training seriously and as well as other neuroi battles and stop breaking strikers and we might be a little more efficient. And the 502nd will be better off financially as well since a big part of our budget goes on repairing the strikers. And I think you hold the record for most broken strikers." Gundula complained.

"For how long will we have this brake? If we are supposed to get to Kusa in time we should hurry up a little, I think." Luciana inquired.

"I guess you are right. We can take a break a little later if we should get tired. But before we take off, divide up ammunition between you all." Aleksandra said and since mostly everyone used MG42 that was the one that there were most trade with. Other weapons like Sanya's Fliegerhammer and Luciana's Anti-tank rifle stayed out of the trade since they had their own extra ammunition and they don't use ammunition in that large quantity as the MG42.

Soon after the trades, they took off in the groups they had formed before and set course for their goal. The luck was on their side after that as they didn't run into any other neuroi on the way. Also by keeping the stops to a minimum, they managed to reach Kusa by daybreak and literally almost fell dead on the ground as they landed at the meeting place in the middle of the town.

As they have landed outside the building of the leaders, Gundula gathered the last of her strength and did her best to not let the fatigue and exhaustion take over. She was tired and her body ached since she (or no one of the others in the unit, for that matter) clearly weren't used to fly over these kinds of distances over that short time span. But she was clearly ordered to report as soon as they arrived to let the higher-ups know that they were there to gather at the planning meeting that was planned for the coming day.

It was one of the tallest buildings in the vicinity at 8 stories high. Lights were only on at one room on the second floor and two rooms were lit on the fourth floor. She saluted the guards outside the building and they saluted back to her. "502nd Joint Fighter Wing reporting in. I'm the commanding officer Gundula Rall. I was ordered to report our arrival to the leaders as soon as we arrived." She said and kept a convincing stance as good as she could.

"We have awaited your arrival, and you are rather late, but the vice commander is already up and are waiting for you. Go up and report to him immediately. He is on the second floor, third door to the left." The male guard instructed her.

"I will. Thanks for the information." She said and saluted them again before walking inside though the door. She did as she were told and went up the stairs and on the second floor she knocked on the third door to the left.

"Come in, please." A voice said from the inside, and Gundula opened the door and went in and stood on the middle of the room before a man in his 50s.

"502nd Joint Fighter Wing reporting in. I'm commanding officer Gundula Rall." She said and saluted the man and waited for him to finish what he was writing in the book.

He closed the book and gave her a salute as well, and then both of them lowered their hands. "Welcome to Kusa, Commander Rall. I'm Mikhail Belousov, vice-commander of this operation. Nice to see that you made it here. But it is nearly 3 hour later than from what we were told. What is your excuse for this?"

"We were encountered with some fierce neuroi's on the way that slowed us down. They took a while to defeat and they depleted our magic to some degree which made us stop for a few more occasions. The rest of my unit and myself are totally taken by fatigue and need plenty of rest."

"We actually got some reports of a few neurois going in your direction. But with your units strength you should be able to handle 3 neurois without much problem, with the exception of new strikers now and then." He said with a smirk and a short laugh to his own joke. "But would you fill me in on details of these neurois if they managed to hold you up for so long, since they don't sound like the average neuroi?"

"The neurois we met were exceptionally fast and could outrun us if they wanted to, so with some great teamwork with the witches from the 501st, Flying officer Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen and Sanya Litvyak, we managed to quickly down 2 of them. The strength of their beams were of the average neuroi but their speed was unmatched. They also transformed when they sensed or noticed us. And it also seemed like the have a keen sense since they noticed us from 10 minutes away and then they closed that distance in 2 minutes after they transformed."

"They closed the distance in just 2 minutes from 10 minutes away when they used their normal speed? How did their forms look like after they transformed?" He asked and looked rather intrigued.

"Ehrm, they looked almost identical to a V-1 missile. It had the stabilizers and the jet engine and everything, it was just a bit longer than the usual V-1. Their armor was not that hard to penetrate and their core was behind a layer in the front about one meter inside."

"Hmm, this information is really good to know, and by the fact that you met three of them and none of them were drones might mean that it is likely that there are more of them. We can only hope that we won't be meeting more of them by their hive. The excuse is taken and accepted but you will have to take this up on the meeting tomorrow so we can prepare for the chance that we will meet them again. And by the concern about your fatigue, the meeting needs to be attended by you and your commander in battle, and I think I heard that you didn't were in command in battle."

"That's correct. Our commander in battle is Aleksandra Pokryshkin." She replied.

"That was the name." He mumbled to himself and wrote it down on a paper. "Anyway, the meeting will be attended by you two, the commanders over the Fuso witches, the tank squadron, the anti-air squadron, the self-propelled gun squadron and by us. The meeting was supposed to start at 12.00 but I think we can postpone it to 14.00 if I'm lucky so you can get some additional sleep and rest up some more. We can't have some commanders sleepwalking on the meeting and miss this vital information."

Gundula shone up when she heard that they could postpone the meeting by two hours. The needed the sleep and even those two hours would make a huge difference in their alertness during the meeting.

"Thank you very much sir! I greatly appreciate this." Gundula then replied and saluted again.

"Now go and rest so you are prepared for tomorrow. Let the others in your unit sleep as much as they need. Also we will take care of your striker units as well as your weapons. So leave them on the stand we have outside next to the truck. We are ordered to transport them to our hangar until tomorrow when we will have a united training with the witches from Fuso. Good night, commander of the 502nd JFW." He said before going back and started writing in the book again before looking up again. "Oh, and by the way, the 502nd are supposed to live in the third building to the right on the next block. The third floor is all yours. We have also made sure you will have all the food you will need and if you need more, just ask."

"Thank you very much, and good night or good morning on you then." She replied with a smile and she saw a small smile grow on his stiff face as well. She left the building and met up with the other members of the unit, who made their best effort to stay awake until Gundula came out of the building. Aleksandra slowly got up on her legs and she looked like she could collapse any minute but she managed to walk up to Gundula.

"What did they say?" She asked and rested her chin on Gundula's shoulder for standing support.

"We managed to get the meeting by two hours so it will now be held by 14.00. And we both have to attend. We will need our commanding officer in battle."

"If that is so can we please go to bed now? I'm so tired and can't stay awake for much longer. I'm not sure if I'm awake now or if I'm sleeping. Do you know? Aleksandra asked again and Gundula smiled faintly.

"You are awake, I'm sure of it. But if you want to sleep we just need to place our strikers and our weapons on the stand next to the truck over there." Gundula pointed at the truck where two soldiers were arguing about something. "They will then transport it to the hangar where they will store it until tomorrow."

Aleksandra turned around and picked up her strikers and weapons and she brought them to the stand, as did the others after Gundula instructed them to. The soldiers started to try flirting with most of them but when they noticed that they were more or less zombies by now they gave up pretty fast and drove away with the truck with the 502nd equipment to their hangar as they were tasked with.

Then the team followed Gundula to their building in a straight, but rather unorganized line. As they entered the building and got up to their room, each of them except Gundula fell asleep on closest empty bed without even bother to undress or anything first. She had the decency to at least undress before going to bed. But after she laid her head on the pillow, she also fell asleep in no time.

**Chapter 6 End**

* * *

**Mikhail Belousov, or the vice-commander is just a random person and isn't a real person in the canon Strike Witches universe.  
Most of the people with names you don't recognize (at least the males since I don't know of any males in Strike Witches) will most probably be used during this arc. Just to let you know.**


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